Oxford-based artist Jaya Mansberger spent her formative years in Nepal and Kauai, an island in Hawaii. Having graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, she produced psychologically charged portraits before delving into abstract artwork. Jaya also teaches art to young people in Oxford.
The painter has always felt compelled to make art; her first memory related to drawing involves her trying to capture the domed shape and colourful flags of the Swayambhunath Stupa in Kathmandu at age 5. As a child, Jaya also developed a passion for drawing mermaids when living by the sea in Hawaii, and hopes to explore these aquatic creatures in her art again soon. When attending secondary school in Oxford, Jaya’s art teacher encouraged her to apply straight to art school at age 18, and the creator is happy she listened.
Although art usually helps Jaya cope with the state of the world, the pandemic has strongly impacted her art practice. During the first two lockdowns in the UK, the painter lived on a narrowboat on the Oxford canal and was unable to access her studio. Unfortunately, the artist could not make nor store artwork, and had to put her project – a new series of figurative oil paintings – on hold. That being said, Jaya continued to use her sketchbook, and has enjoyed painting the wildflowers growing along the canal towpath with watercolours. She describes painting outside in the sun as an uplifting and useful diversion from doomscrolling.
When detailing what inspires her to make art, Jaya lists: “Intensity, of feeling and vision. Sensuality. Beauty. Grace. Gentleness. Tenderness. Subtlety. Different psychological states. Hope and/or despair. Mystery and the poetic, which have been increasingly erased from our society.” She certainly succeeds in expressing all of this in her breathtaking artwork, making the viewer feel immersed in swirling skies and ethereal atmospheres. Take a look!
Over the years, London Fashion Week has grown significantly. Even in the pandemic stage, the evolution couldn’t stop, and it stood out to be one of the best fashion weeks ever. If you’re a model trying to run down the runway, a buyer, or just a fashion connoisseur, you really have a lot of things to look forward to. Fashion has indeed become big business in today’s time, and you surely don’t want to miss it.
The London Fashion Week, as per statistics, employs around 800,000 people, thereby contributing a lot to the economy of the United Kingdom. It has turned out to become one of the biggest creative industries in the country. The London Fashion Week is indeed allowing the growth of the country.
The London Fashion Week gets held biannually, allowing the designers to express themselves and bring out the best on the platter. It also plays an essential role in bestowing financial standing. Well, the attires and clothes displayed at the London Fashion Week are costly, but they’re surely the ice-breaker.
Over the years, the London Fashion Week is one of the Big Four events that has drastically changed. It has been here for almost four decades now and has some of the most prestigious and historic icons attached to it, such as Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana, and Margaret Thatcher. The London Fashion Week has it all, from glitz and glamour to big-budget presentations. No matter what you want, you can find it all here.
History
The first London Fashion Week got held in 1984 February, after the British Fashion Council’s foundation. Initially, it wasn’t a grand event. The inaugural of the event took place at a car park in West of London.
Although there was a designer showroom space, all the catwalks happened under a tent. But, this eventually changed with time. Back in 1984, only 15 catwalks were held, which is significantly lesser than the Big Four. However, in the initial phase itself, the London Fashion Week stood out to be an instant hit.
Vivienne Westwood was the prominent designer to feature in the London Fashion Week. The event, as said, has turned into a global phenomenon. The designers, journalists, and buyers from all over the country and world participate in the London Fashion Weekend.
While only a handful of guests were a part of LFW initially, the number has grown significantly. Around 5000 guests were a part of the London Fashion Week in February 2020. Hence, even in the pre-pandemic period, it got estimated that close to 100,000 people had visited the place. One can easily understand the demand for the growth of London Fashion Week.
Around 72 catwalk shows and presentations got held during the February 2020 LFW. But not just the runway. The number of designers is surprising too. Almost 250 designers made it to be a part of the event. The high-luxury clientele has contributed a lot to the popularity.
Compared to other parts of the Big Four, the London Fashion Week is the youngest, and in a short period, it has achieved immense popularity. The New York Fashion Week started in 1943, Milan in 1957, and London eventually in 1973. Around 105,000 visitors make their way to the London Fashion Week, just second to the New York Fashion Week.
The London Fashion Week has played an essential role in enhancing the impact and career of fashion designers. Some of the most influential designers of the country made their way to the London Fashion Week. The debuting fashion designers have also earned fame and reputation. The debut fashion designers have earned instant fame, which has helped to scale up businesses also.
The Lakme Fashion week was an instant success, but despite that, there are several challenges that you may face on the way. However, you need to analyse the immediate terms attached to it, which is why you will need to be careful with it. Furthermore, they are trying to shape up and bring innovations in the changes.
The London Fashion Week hosted in February 2021 had catwalk shows and presentations attached to it. The show got hosted virtually, which eventually helped to bring challenges. The collections held in February got held online. You need to understand the digital showroom as well as one-on-one appointments. The small hiccups further helped to runaway’s success.
London Fashion Week has come a long way. Despite being a new or young fashion event, it has helped businesses. It also contributes to the country’s economy. If you want to be a part of the event, make sure to keep a check on the event’s schedule.
If any band had been guaranteed to use the freed time of COVID-19 lockdown to release new music, it would have been Cloud Nothings. The hardened indie-rock four-piece from Ohio – led by their creative spirit Dylan Baldi – have been relentless in their output over the last decade. The Black Hole Understands arrived last July, just months after COVID-19’s first onset. Now they’re back again with The Shadow I Remember, and it’s a record concerned with growth and change; what else would it be about this deep into their career and also with the sheer strangeness of the pandemic to contend with?
On the production front, the album also marks the return of the celebrated Steve Albini, who worked on the group’s acclaimed 2012 LP Attack on Memory and provides a crisp zip to Baldi’s scuzzy rhythms. “Is this the end of the life I’ve known?” Albini asks to open the album on ‘Oslo’. It’s both a sign that it was a product of quarantine and a moment of introspection; the piano line that murmurs underneath is as melancholic as things on the album get. Ohmme’s Macie Stewart then joins in to ably assist on the following track, the classically furious ‘Nothing Without You’.
Baldi wrote relentlessly before whittling down his collection for The Shadow I Remember, which makes it all the more surprising that some of the songwriting lets the record down. The middle section, comprising ‘Open Rain’, ‘Sound Of Alarm’, and ‘Am I Something?’, is marked by easy sentiments and banal rhetorical questions (“Oh, I need to make time for me, for me”). Baldi has always been an earnest lyricist, but his writing here can at times feel emotionally shallow.
‘It’s Love’ provides a return to form, its title somewhat of a red herring as Baldi spends the majority of the track screaming roughly about how “It’s a hard life.” ‘A Longer Moon’ and ‘The Room It Was’ close the album defiantly, both ballsy blasts of fuzzy raucousness that the band have always traded in well.
For a band so renowned on the live circuit, missing touring will be like missing a limb; perhaps it’s no wonder that Baldi has been so feverishly committed to songwriting, if only to fill the empty time. But the lack of innovation for a band capable of pushing themselves is all that stops The Shadow I Remember from being an essential part of their output. It’s business as usual but nothing more.
Sydney Sprague is a singer-songwriter from the relative musical outlier of Phoenix, Arizona. Her songs unfold with the consistency of a particularly pained section of a diary from one’s teenage emo phase (“everyday is national emo day if you cry hard enough,” she posted late last year alongside a cover of Fall Out Boy’s classic ‘Sugar, We’re Going Down’), when love and relationships are matters of catastrophic proportions: her debut album is fittingly titled maybe i will see you at the end of the world. Sprague’s raw confessions recall contemporaries like Beabadoobee, but where she looked to the alternative grunge of the 90’s, Sprague is clearly indebted to the angsty 2000s pop of Avril Lavigne.
The album’s opening track and lead single also has the potential to be its breakout hit: ‘i refuse to die’ is a headbanging slice of rock cathartic angst, Sprague evidently full of resolve to not go to the end of the world quietly. ‘Object permanence’ then nicely features fellow Phoenix artist Danielle Durack, before ‘steve’ – all distorted guitars and huge choruses – seems made to soundtrack the climactic moments of an early 00s rom-com; it’s almost disorientating listening to it in 2021.
Sprague shows herself equally capable of reducing the tempo. The sighing and swaying ‘you have to stop’ and the quiet strum of ‘quitter’ are a time to pause in the middle of the record. The songs here are obsessed with ideas of fatality and futility – at times on a track like the sparse but melodic ‘wrongo’, Sprague’s vocals tumble out as if she’s in a rush, so overwhelmed by the emotions of the words. “I am slipping, losing track,” she begins the track ‘time is gone’. On ‘staircase failure’, she considers the escape of becoming an estranged wife, sadly pondering, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
When the end of the world does come, though, Sprague sounds more accepting of it and of love ending than she did at the start of the record. “Maybe the time was just not right/ Give a little space to clear my mind/ And maybe I will see you/ At the end of the world,” she sings, a necessary comedown from the frenetic energy that began the album.
Listening to maybe i will see you at the end of the world, you can sense Sprague’s sincerity. At 28 years old, she’s had to wait for her chance in the spotlight, and it’s partly why there’s a winning sense of cohesion to the album. It’s never overstuffed, never overbearing. She’s a raw storyteller, but can also be sharp and serious in ways that set her apart from her contemporaries. There’s an impressive commitment to a lyrical undercurrent on the record, which takes her through the full gamut of emotions that fill the chaos of the dissolution of a relationship. One wonders whether the angst will carry onto a second album, but there’s certainly enough to fill this one.
Throughout the week, we update our Best New Songs playlist with the new releases that caught our attention the most, be it a single leading up to the release of an album or a newly unveiled deep cut. And each Monday, we round up the best new songs released over the past week (the eligibility period begins on Monday and ends Sunday night) in this segment.
This past week, Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak came through with their first collaborative single as Silk Sonic, the undeniably retro-leaning yet irresistible ‘Leave the Door Open’, which oozes as much charisma as you’d expect from these two artists combined. What perhaps would have been harder for anyone to predict was Japanese Breakfast’s pop pivot on the lead single off her third album, ‘Be Sweet’, a vibrant synthpop tune that bursts with colour and boasts the catchiest hook I’ve heard so far this year. Meanwhile, New York singer and producer Candace Camacho deals in more subdued, reflective tones on her new song as duendita for Mexican Summer’s ongoing Looking Glass series, the fluid and lush ‘Open Eyes’; No Rome, the 1975, and Charli XCX joined forces for a song that recreates the whirlwind sensation suggested by its title (‘Spinning’) without sounding grating; Pom Pom Squad subvert the male gaze of The Virgin Suicides on a track named after one of the characters in Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, stirring up a storm of pent-up emotion; and finally, Jordana teamed with Ryan Woods for ‘Doubt of Revival’, a collaboration that’s propelled by a crunchy bassline but whose beating heart lies in Jordana’s vulnerable lyrics and cathartic harmonies.
Listening to Indigo Sparke’s music can feel like watching a star flicker in the dark country sky: from afar it can seem small and insubstantial, but once you consider the amount of energy that ripples through it, the moment can suddenly feel overwhelming in its intensity. Amid the soft glow of finger-picked guitar and delicate touches of piano, the Sydney-based singer-songwriter often uses that kind of cosmic language to relate her own experience on her debut album, Echo: “I have pulled apart the cosmos/ Trying to find you inside,” she sings on ‘Carnival’; on ‘Wolf’, she implores, “Come upstairs, let me show you all the parts you haven’t seen/ There’s a hell, there’s a heaven, there’s a universe exploding,” before comparing her lover to the moon. Recorded between Los Angeles, Italy, and New York, the follow-up to 2016’s Nightbloom EP was co-produced by Adrianne Lenker, with whom she was briefly involved in 2019, and frequent Big Thief collaborator Andrew Sarlo; the result is a mesmerizing record that’s charged with emotional intimacy without ever losing its poetic, intangible qualities. “Everything is dying,” she tenderly intones against the ghostly echo of an instrumental, “Everything is simple.” These are the final words on the album, but while it’s easy to focus on the stripped-back nature of Sparke’s music, it’s the everything she seems perpetually more entranced by.
We caught up with Indigo Sparke for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her earliest musical memories, working with Adrianne Lenker, and the restlessness to belong to something greater.
This might be a bit of a weird question to start things off, but are you somewhere where you can see the sky?
Not right now, but I was just under the sky. I actually just went and had a farewell dinner with all my friends. We went to a pizza evening and we were sitting in the park, and the sky was like – it had been raining all morning, so it was very translucent and blue.
That sounds really beautiful. I love that you said that, because I was just going to ask if you could describe the sky for me.
Yeah, it was kind of very, very pale blue. But then it had these washes of pink through it. You know, like sometimes after it’s been raining a lot the sky gets so crystal clear. It’s really pretty.
It’s actually related to something I wanted to touch on later on, but I was hoping we could go back in time a little bit first, because I know you grew up in a musical family. Do you mind sharing some early memories of feeling connected to music?
I think some of the music that calmed me at the earliest stage was Erik Satie. I can’t quite get a clear visual about when the first time that was played for me or what was going on, but there’s an emotional memory in my body, so I can still put that on and it still calms my nervous system in a way where it takes me back to like feeling like a five year old.
I was talking about this actually yesterday with two of my friends, we were talking about some of the first concerts that our parents took us to. And my mom took me to see Rufus Wainwright when I was really young. And he was there with like, fishnet stockings and high heels and I said to my mom, “I’m so in love with him. I just want to marry him when I get older.” And my mom was like, “That’s beautiful, darling, but he’s into men.” [laughs]
It’s funny, I get that feeling a lot with Erik Satie too, actually. I think heard his music in a TV show recently and it just took me back to discovering him at an early age and having an emotional connection to it. How would you describe yourself at that age?
I was a very intense child. I had a lot of feelings – I think I felt the world so intensely, and I still do, but back then I didn’t have the tools that I have now to regulate my emotions, so I was either in so much extreme joy and I was ecstatic, or I was just so devastated if, like, my piece of toast broke half or something. [laughs] I was having a very visceral experience of life. And I think I was quite a restless child. I remember always having a lot of energy and not knowing what to do with it, and my mom tried – I was playing soccer and I was like, skating and doing a lot of sports to try and use this energy at the time. Music was difficult for me; I don’t think I had the patience for it. I remember having to do piano lessons, and I remember getting really good. But I remember just chucking the biggest tantrums every time before I had to go to my piano class. I think just having to sit still was really challenging for me. And I was at a Steiner school, so it was very involved; we were making bread and building woodworks and so that was quite a good thing for me. I was a little bit of a wildling child, honestly.
You mentioned that music wasn’t really an outlet at first, and I know you also worked as an actress before you decided to pursue music. I’m wondering what inspired that change or drew you in that direction, and also whether acting has influenced your approach music in any way.
I think, for me, being able to use a character as a doorway and as permission to access the deep internal psyche of another character is really exciting, when they were meaty characters – characters that had a lot of layers and had a lot of secrets. It was a really nice excuse to be able to go into that world and especially in theater, because it’s so much more instant – it’s more like playing live music, because you have the alchemy of the audience and yourself and that changes every night. But I think just having a safe space and a container that was theater or was the acting class allows you to reflect and access all these different parts of yourself that you could then bring to that character adaptation.
However, it became really challenging for me when I graduated from acting school and I got an agent and I started auditioning for things. And you’re constantly just in this process of putting your self-worth in the hands of another person to determine whether you’re right or wrong or you can be the vessel for that character portrayal. Which kind of starts to wear on you in some ways, because a lot of the time it doesn’t actually have anything to do with your capacity or your capability to portray that character and the depth that’s needed; it’s a lot to do with how you look or how tall you are, all these other external physical factors. Or you get typecast as, you know, the girl next door or these characters that to me at the time felt quite boring. But I think that’s changing now in film and television and theater, because there’s this beautiful women’s movement and feminist movement where there’s so much more being told through the female gaze. So there’s been really substantial women characters because, I mean, women are so substantial, there’s so much to them and they’re so multi-layered that now there’s these roles being written that you can really sink your teeth into. But I find more joy in watching other women play those roles than the idea of me playing one of those characters.
And I think, leading on from that, I guess at some point I found music – my dad gave me a guitar and I started playing, I was just teaching myself to play guitar. And I think the beautiful thing about that was that it helped me bring it from an external place back into a very internal, private place. No one was watching me, no one was telling me, “You can’t do that,” or, “No, you should do it like this,” or, “You got the role!” It was me being able to free-flow my experience into this space with this instrument. And that felt so much more satisfying and it really felt like I had found my breath. Up until that point I had been surface breathing, and then I’m like, “Oh, okay, this is what it feels like to breathe something that you love or be in the world with purpose.”
Do you feel that it’s less like inhabiting a character, in the sense that you’re more honest with yourself when you’re accessing these different parts of yourself?
There’s like two parts to it for me, I feel. There’s the part where I’m in a really private space where I’m writing music and I feel like I’m not doing that for anybody else. I’m just expressing something that’s naturally flowing or like I’m witnessing something. It feels very uninfected in that space. But what happens when you’re transmuting that – once you’ve made recordings or you’re playing a live show, then you have to transmute it in some way. It alchemizes differently once somebody else becomes involved in that or an audience steps in or you’re recording the songs.
For this new album, you co-produced it with Adrianne Lenker and there were other people involved as well. How would you describe that collaborative process? Did it affect the songs in any way?
I think it was just a continuation of our love, actually; the experience of our love, our friendship, our partnership at the time, our love in that space. It was just a continuation of that, so the whole process felt very natural and easy. And I think when you know someone so well, you don’t have to do so much talking, you don’t have to explain things so much – you can just kind of intuitively feel where the flow of energy is moving in symbiosis together.
So it didn’t really feel like someone was stepping into the process in that way.
I think because her and I felt so unified in that period of time – we were more like a unit, we felt more like we were of the same animal. So it felt different when we were working with [Andrew] Sarlo or Phil [Weinrobe] or Shahzad [Ismaily], that was more of a different experience because I didn’t know them so well. They weren’t as familiar with the music as she was.
To change the subject a bit, I was wondering if you could talk about your travels across America, how that informed the songs and what you feel like you learned from that experience as a whole.
I think I learned a lot about how much space I need as a human being who feels intensely. [laughs] Because I felt like all my feelings had a place to exist. There was so much space in those deserts; I felt okay, I felt at peace. And it was like there was enough space and room and time and nature to be able to reflect on so many aspects of myself and so many stones of thought that I was turning over in my mind, and constantly am, and I think we all are. Living in a city or being in a place full of concrete that’s fast-paced and you don’t hear the wind whipping through the valley, like, it’s very difficult to find space to hear your own thoughts and feel yourself in a deep way. And I think that’s the beauty that landscape gifted me. Something about being on the road just gives so much room for reflection; my favorite thing to do is driving along endless stretching highways, looking out the window and listening to ambient music and or not listening to music. There’s something about that, again, it’s like something alchemizes.
And I think it relates to something that you’ve said about the album, which is that it’s an “ode to death and decay. And the restlessness I feel to belong to something greater.” Again, there’s that word, “restless.” But I’m interested in how these two things are connected in your mind.
I think, in my personal experience of life, I’ve had moments of feeling very connected to something greater. Call it what you will, call it God, call it the universe or cosmic energy or whatever. There have been moments where I’ve felt deeply in tune with that. And there have been moments where I’ve been so disconnected from that, where I felt really cold and harsh in the way I’m interacting with the world, or times where I’ve been in really destructive places. And I think that they do inform each other in some way, because I think once you have a deep understanding of impermanence and death and decay, and that understanding really settles in your body in a physical way, you have two avenues: You can go into a dark and destructive, shadowy place, or you can choose something that’s light-filled and have faith and believe in something greater and believe that there is a purpose to being here in life. And I’ve oscillated between those two places. It’s like coming to a crossroads, you know, you’re in a juncture point. And I kind of came to these deep understandings, and I had over a period of many, many years, through so many different life experiences – death was a very real part of existence, decay is very real, it’s everywhere, it’s happening all the time. And then it’s like, what do you choose to do with that? Do you choose love? Do you choose expansion? Do you choose to soften? Or do you choose fear and to harden and to go down a path where you become small and not trust? And it’s painful, that path. Both are painful, actually; to expand is painful and to shrink is painful, but you find more love when you expand through the change and the pain.
And I think something about being in those landscapes – it’s very hard not to believe in some kind of greater mystical cosmic energy. There’s such wide skies and wide landscapes where it’s just – my chest was blown open, I didn’t even really get a choice. You kind of blend and merge with the landscape.
Something that struck me about the album was the parallels between people and human interactions and then the universe and space and the sky. And it made me wonder if you often find yourself thinking about not just landscapes and nature in those cosmic terms, but also people and human interactions. Why do you think you’re drawn to that kind of imagery when it comes to evoking those relationships? Is it just the intensity of it?
I think that deep, intense human intimacy and interaction is actually a portal for experiencing what you experience in nature. I feel like sometimes the only comparison to use to express the extreme greatness of the feeling that you can have in an intimate relationship is by comparing it to something that really does exist in such an extreme state. Because words just don’t seem to hold all the meaning that they need to sometimes when I’m trying to express things; I often find that language is such a barrier. There’s like a language barrier and then there’s this flesh barrier and sometimes I’m like – I wish I could just take all of this away and strip it all back and show you the landscape of my inner world, like, just show it, you know?
Yeah, that’s definitely something that resonated with me about these songs, just how raw and intimate and authentic they are. And one in particular that I wanted to talk about was ‘Carnival’, because I just love the poetry and the language in that. Could talk about how that song came together and what it means to you?
I actually just cannot remember the birthplace of that song, where it came from inside of me. That’s one of the songs that I feel most deeply about as well, actually. And oftentimes when I’m feeling very close to something or someone, I tend to have a bit of dissociation, where it’s difficult for me to recall the finer details of the moment. I just feel it so deeply when I listen to that song. I feel like I managed to get my heart out in a particular way that when I listen to it, I’m like, “You were really vulnerable and authentic with that expression.” Just this deep fucking desperation to not, in some ways, ever want to grow up or lose the intimacy or closeness that you have with a parent or caregiver. And this terror of stepping out into the world as an adult and having to move through all this pain and heartbreak and everything that we move through as human beings. We’re so fragile in the human condition and what we have to experience. There are moments where I look at myself and I look at everyone I know and it’s just these little children, and I’m like, “I just want to take care of you all,” including the little one inside of myself. I just wanna be like, “Come here, honey,” like, “It’s okay, you’re gonna be okay, I know it’s so scary out there, isn’t it? It’s so scary.” And I think it just hit on that tenderness for me, there was something about it where I was really acknowledging this little girl inside of me who was just like, I’m so scaredand I just want love and I just want to be okay in the world and I want to find that intimacy with a partner and I – you know, when you’re holding on in naivety, where you’re just like, you don’t want anyone to disappear, the people that you love.
Yeah. Wow. There’s something – it’s interesting that we started off talking about early childhood memories, because this feels like coming full circle, in a way. It’s like there’s this childlike essence in all of us that remains the same, no matter how old we get. So, with that said, I only have one last question, which is whether you’ve thought about where you might want to go next and explore more of in your music.
I’m really excited to start working on another record. I’ve been writing during the last year and I’m feeling really excited to explore music in a way that has a bit more of my rage and my rawness and my grit in it; emotions that as human beings we look at as more distasteful or ugly. I’m starting to understand and learn more that human emotions are all valid and normal to have and the more that we can look at them and embrace them, the more beautifully they transmute. It tends to be it’s just how we express them; sometimes those emotions are so intense, they can be expressed in such a violent and disgusting way. So I think I’m really interested in how they transmute into music in a way that’s beautiful but still has the realness of that experience in it. Because a lot of my music in the past has kind of felt like it’s been reflecting more ethereal or feminine sides of myself, but all of these different worlds exist.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Zara Picken, known as @zaraillustrates on Instagram, is an illustrator based in Lincoln, UK. Zara graduated from the University of West England in Bristol in 2008, and has been a professional illustrator ever since. The artist’s work offers a range of styles, from softer hues and layered shapes building elegant subjects, to bold, bursting colours creating simple but striking compositions. Much of Zara’s work is inspired by mid-century design, which is usually characterised by uncluttered and smooth lines and fun geometric forms. The illustrator adds her own edge to this, harmoniously integrating characters and objects resembling paper cutouts and sharing an engaging visual world with her audiences.
Over the past decade, Zara Picken has created illustrations for editorial, advertising and publishing, and has been commissioned by many international clients including The Guardian, Wired, BBC, and Times Higher Education. Check more of Zara’s work out and browse her print shop on her website.
Diamonds are traditionally thought of as being super-sparkly and technically transparent, with the facets cut in them by master jewelers transforming light into a glittering, dazzling display.
You may also be aware of the existence of diamonds of different colors, which can be beautiful on their own or even more impactful when combined with other precious gems.
But what about the elusive, seemingly impossible black diamond? This mysterious stone sounds like a contradiction in terms, but is actually a gorgeous and personality-packed alternative to white diamonds.
Here is a deeper dive into the secrets of the black diamond, so you can expand your horizons on your next jewelry buying spree.
All about the inclusions
Surprisingly enough, black diamonds are found in nature, so while they can be made in a lab, the highest quality and most expensive examples available for decorative purposes will be mined in much the same way as other precious minerals.
The thing which makes them look black is the prevalence of graphite inclusions. Almost all gemstones have inclusions; those little flaws which can be seen if you look closely that were left there as the mineral deposit was formed. But while in most cases these are undesirable, they are entirely necessary to give black diamonds their signature look.
The trapped graphite within black diamond stud earrings and all other jewelry made with this gem gathers together to create the dark tone that is so desirable to certain customers.
Treatment options
Naturally occurring diamonds that are packed with enough inclusions to appear inky-black as soon as they are pulled from the ground are relatively rare, and thus the most valuable example of this type of precious stone.
In order to meet demand, and also make black diamonds more affordable as an option, leading jewelers will take advantage of treatment techniques to transform white diamonds into black equivalents.
This might sound like trickery, but it is entirely standard practice in the industry; so long as this treatment is disclosed to customers, it is all above-board.
In fact, treating diamonds to turn them black through irradiation and other methods is actually a means of minimizing waste, because the only white diamonds which are subjected to this are those that have too many natural inclusions to make them saleable on their own, but not enough to be truly black without a little bit of help.
Aesthetic appeal & versatility
The humble black diamond has exploded in popularity in recent years, as a new generation of customers has arisen, seeking out alternatives to established jewelry styles and trends that are still easy on the eye.
From engagement rings to necklaces and beyond, black diamonds have an edgier aesthetic to them, and still give you that much needed bling and shimmer when the light catches them.
Because they are fundamentally identical to white diamonds, they can also be cut in whatever shape suits the tastes of the buyer; from round and pear-shaped stones to hearts, cushion-cuts and everything in between, it is easy to see why black diamond jewelry is gaining traction at the moment.
In May of 2020, Netflix announced the second season of Summertime, the original Italian series produced by Cattleya (Part of ITV Studios). With many months gone, Netflix has finally revealed a forty-three second teaser trailer for the second season.
The second season of the series will be directed by Francesco Lagi, the co-director and co-writer of the first season, and Marta Savina. Each episode will be written by Enrico Audenino and Francesco Lagi with Daniela Gambaro, Luca Giordano and Vanessa Picciarelli working alongside them on the scripts of various episodes.
21-year-old Rachel Lu (moniker: LVRA, pronounced loo-rah) was born in Edinburgh to Chinese parents. Her musical journey began as a teenager, writing angsty songs at the piano in her parents’ home. In her creations, LVRA braids an electro-pop/R&B base with traditional Chinese instruments and her soft but intoxicating vocals, and her music speaks to anyone navigating identity and relationships as a young adult, regardless of background. With the pandemic bringing about a spike in racist abuse towards Chinese students in the UK and beyond, her debut EP LVCID, released in June 2020, sought to “paint a positive image of Chinese culture in the wake of COVID-19,” as she put it in a press release. The EP encapsulates unexpectedly reciprocated love, thirst for adventure, and the difficult but worthwhile choice of prioritising your own happiness. The up-and-coming singer recently gave fans a first taste of her second EP, set for release this summer, with the vibrant new track ‘Dead’. The single marks a transformative moment in LVRA’s sound, the heavy bass foundation and unapologetically bold lyrics demonstrating the singer’s successful foray into the darker, more experimental corners of pop.
We caught up with LVRA for our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her creative process and sources of inspiration, the struggles and rewards of self-production, memorable travel experiences, and more.
Hi LVRA, how have you been doing lately? Where are you currently based?
Hey! I’ve been doing pretty fine thanks, things are moving slowly but surely. I am literally just about to move from my family home in Edinburgh to London, so that should be fun.
Tell us a little bit about your background. Has your sense of national/cultural identity fluctuated over time?
Both my parents are Chinese and moved here before I was born, so I grew up in Edinburgh in a suburban area and the schools I went to were very white-dominated. It’s so funny that the question of identity has kept popping up throughout my life. I remember being like 8 years old in the playground and the kids would ask me whether or not I was Scottish or Chinese, being born here and all, and I used to say I was Scottish – because I thought, or wanted, to be like the other kids, I guess. And for the most part, I felt like I was like them. But it was leaving Edinburgh and moving on to university, growing closer to people with similar experiences to me, growing apart from others, that made me realise how naive my younger self was. I feel like through my music I can embrace the side of me I think I neglected for a long time.
You finished writing ‘Wall’ in China and have expressed that the natural beauty and generous locals you encountered there left you in a state of awe and wonder. Which places that you visited in the country left the strongest impression on you?
My favourite place on earth is Guilin, Guangxi Province, which is known for its beautiful karst mountains. I took footage there which ended up in the visualiser for ‘Wall’. We were riding through long and empty roads between these huge, green peaks that looked straight out of a movie. It was getting really dark and we stopped by a local family’s house and asked for water – they ended up inviting us in for a drink and food, and then guided us back down the mountain to the nearest town. They were so interested in our experiences because of their isolation from the rest of the world, and their kindness along with many others deeply affected me.
Wow, that sounds like a really special experience. You’ve mentioned you used to write songs at your parents’ house. Was there a specific moment you realised you wanted to share your pieces with wider audiences, or was it more of a gradual process?
I was always too scared, as a kid, to get up on stage and sing. It was producing that really unlocked my confidence to release music, and a positive reaction from a few things I released on Soundcloud led on to other things. I have a lot of individual people in my life to thank for that.
What artists have recently been on repeat and/or influencing your own music style?
I’ve been listening to a mixture of alt-pop and electronic music, lots of female artists and producers like Grimes, SOPHIE, Yaeji, Rina Sawayama, Park Hye Jin, FKA twigs. But I also like a lot heavier electronic breakbeat/techno/bass music – my playlist ‘east goes hard’ on Spotify is filled with some awesome eastern producers from the Chinese underground scene.
On a similar note, what’s an album you think is underrated?
Mura Masa’s first album, Soundtrack to a Death, is less well known than his bigger collaborations, but was really the first time I’d heard such strong east-Asian influences in Western music. Similar case with Flume’s self-titled debut studio album that came out in 2012. I grew up with those two albums, and I still listen to them regularly for production inspiration.
You’ve released several music videos to accompany your songs. Do you have a favourite?
It’s got to be the video we just released for ‘Dead’ – I felt like the video and song were meant for each other. Super happy with the result thanks to the amazing work of Oscar, who basically solo filmed and produced the whole thing, start to finish.
That’s lovely, the song and video for ‘Dead’ really do complement each other. I was hoping you couldtalk us through the creative process behind the new single. How did it all come together?
‘Dead’ began as a pretty experimental demo where I wanted to create heavier sounds whilst using traditional Chinese instruments – the main hook of the song – “off with his head – huh – dead” – kind of came first and then I built the rest of the song from there, adding that really meaty bass sound you hear in the chorus. The bridge was really the last part of the song that I added, because for a while I didn’t really know what direction to take it, but I really like the idea of taking on multiple personas and bringing different kinds of characters and voices into the mix, and so I ended up with something a bit messed up and creepy. This was heavily inspired by the theatrical nature of artists like Lady Gaga.
I also find the video for your live version of ‘u should be in love with me’ insanely beautiful. What was the atmosphere like on set?
Thank you! It was super chill – we recorded it in the back room of a big warehouse! It’s always fun to play around with the arrangement of songs for live versions.
How did it feel to release your debut EP LVCID? Was the process complicated and tiring or exhilarating – or maybe a mix?
Yeah, it was both to be honest. I recorded LVCID over the span of two years, so to finally have it out there was more a relief than anything. Because the EP was self-produced, it gave me a lot of freedom with creative decisions, but there was added pressure to create something that lived up to my own expectations. It was a shame that it ended up dropping during lockdown and I wasn’t able to perform it live, but I’m super happy with how it turned out and my growth as an artist and producer during the process of creating it.
You’ve described LVCID as “a documentation of the process of learning while navigating through those important young years of self-discovery; realising the mistakes you make, finding the people you trust, discovering what really makes you happy”. Do you feel the EP you’re working on now has a different vision and mission, or will that only become clear when everything’s wrapped up?
The upcoming EP is something pretty different, and whilst it definitely still documents a period in my life of self-discovery, it’s a whole new kind of energy. The production takes a lot more from my influences in electronic music and more experimental pop. This change is a reflection of my becoming a more confident person and artist, freeing myself of judgement from others and exploring the darker side of the human condition in my writing.
Thinking back to a time before lockdowns… Do you have a favourite venue you’ve performed in? What made it special?
I loved performing at the Bullingdon in Oxford, it’s just such a sick venue and I’ve had so many incredible nights there listening to some talented artists and DJs, so performing there felt great.
What are some live concerts you hope to see once the coronavirus crisis is over?
I really want to see Rina Sawayama and Lady Gaga whose tours were both postponed last year! But also would love to see Grimes do her thing.
Finally, do you have any tips for young musicians worried about getting started?
Show your music to people who are both supportive and helpful in giving pointers and constructive criticism. Reaching out and making contact with other musicians who are similar to you is also a great way of working out where exactly you want your sound to fit into what’s out there already. Also having a basic understanding of production is really helpful even if you are a writer. The earlier you start the better – it takes time to grow into your sound and develop your skills, so just go for it and don’t really give a shit about trying to make music the ‘right’ way, just make what makes you feel good!
