At only 29, Zendaya is a household name. Actor, singer, and fashion icon, she began her career as a child model before landing roles on several Disney Channel shows and movies. Things only got better from there.
Fast-forward to 2026, and her entertainment calendar is booked with major blockbusters and series. Besides starring in Euphoria, which just ended its three-season run, Zendaya was recently in the anti-rom-com The Drama, along with Robert Pattinson. Next up, she is set to appear in The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Dune: Part Three.
Given how busy she is, her net worth more than reflects her workaholic ways. Here’s what we know about her earnings.
As an award-winning actor and brand ambassador, she has maintained a lucrative career since 2010. Back then, she got her breakthrough in Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up, in which she starred alongside Bella Thorne. More Disney opportunities followed, including the main role in K.C. Undercover and movies like Frenemies and Zapped. In parallel, Zendaya appeared on Dancing with the Stars and embarked on a music career.
Her transition to major studio movies went without a hitch. She plays MJ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and previously had roles in The Greatest Showman and Malcolm & Marie. Zendaya also voiced Lola Bunny in Space Jam: A New Legacy and received widespread acclaim for 2024 hit Challengers.
Besides, Zendaya previously launched a shoe collection and clothing line. As for brands, she collaborated with Lancôme, Bulgari, Valentino, Glaceau Smartwater, Louis Vuitton, and Rolex, to name only a few.
Zendaya Salary
While information about salaries is generally kept under wraps, there have been rumours about how much Zendaya earned from different roles.
Back in 2022, for instance, it was reported that she earned $10 million from Spider-Man: No Way Home bonuses alone. The actor was paid the same sum to star in and produce Challengers, according to US Weekly.
On the TV side, there’s HBO hit Euphoria, which won Zendaya two Emmy awards. In 2023, the same US Weekly reported that she renegotiated her contract to be paid $1 million dollars per episode.
Zendaya Highest Grossing Movies
While Zendaya’s net worth is impressive, everything she stars in does well at the box office.
Spider-Man: No Way Home was the highest-grossing film of 2021. In fact, all of the Spider-Man and Dune films had solid box office runs. We’re guessing the sequels set to come out later this year will follow the same route.
Screens are no longer tied to specific functions or places. We move between them constantly — at home, in transit, in waiting rooms, hotels, offices, cafes, and public spaces. They shape how we consume information, communicate, and experience culture. Increasingly, they also shape how we encounter art.
The growing presence of screens in everyday life is changing the role of digital art itself. Media works are no longer limited to museums, festivals, or temporary installations shown for a fixed audience and a fixed period of time. Instead, they can exist as part of everyday visual environments — integrated into the spaces people already inhabit throughout the day. CIFRA expands the ways digital works circulate and are experienced, allowing media art to become less event-based and more continuous: something encountered casually, repeatedly, and alongside daily routines.
CIFRA is building a different kind of infrastructure for digital art, creating new ways for it to exist beyond the traditional exhibition cycle. Bringing together artists, curators, institutions, and audiences within one ecosystem, the platform combines access to works with curated selections, editorial framing, and long-term visibility. Moving across formats including video art, sound works, AI-based practices, audio art, and other forms of contemporary media art, CIFRA approaches digital culture as an evolving environment. Works that can be discovered gradually, revisited over time, and experienced in different contexts and ways of perception.
CIFRA operates as a curatorial environment shaped by human expertise instead of algorithmic recommendation. Audience participation and discovery are structured through public playlists, editorial pathways, and guided explorations, encouraging more intentional engagement with works, practices, and histories and moving away from passive scrolling.
The platform has an international Artistic Vision Council bringing together leading figures in media art and digital culture, including Olga Shishko, Lev Manovich, Daniela Arriado, David Elliott, Christiane Paul, Oliver Grau, and Martin Honzik, who help shape the platform’s editorial direction and seasonal programming.
Encountering media art no longer necessarily requires entering a museum or waiting for a major event. It can happen at home, during moments of transit, through personal devices, or within shared environments that people move through every day. In this sense, digital art is becoming less isolated from daily experience and more integrated into the visual language of contemporary life itself.
Central to CIFRA are curated playlists that connect works through shared themes, atmospheres, and artistic approaches. The playlist below, curated by Olga Shishko, Chair of Artistic Vision Council, brings together works from CIFRA that reflect on mythology as a form of knowledge and explore how contemporary artists reinterpret relationships between technology, nature, identity, and perception.
Mariano Sardón, The Wall of Gazes Created through an experiment conducted in Buenos Aires, the work tracks the eye movements of viewers observing portraits of other people. Sardón reveals the areas that escape perception — the “blind spots” in human observation. The piece reflects on the limitations of visual knowledge and suggests that understanding another person requires more than sight alone.
Sergey Kishchenko, The Duck Test Set within the ruins of an industrial factory, the performance film follows the figure of the Duck Man moving through a landscape marked by labor, destruction, and transformation. Soil mixed with sweat, oil, and blood becomes a symbolic terrain where identity is unstable and constantly shifting. The work explores mythic cycles of creation and collapse.
Angelika Markul, Deadly Charm of Snakes The film combines mythology, politics, beauty, and violence through the symbol of the snake. Referencing both the political atmosphere of the Trump era and ancient representations of feminine power, the work explores fear, aggression, and the enduring force of nature.
Almagul Menlibaeva, Steppen Barocco Focusing on female identity in Central Asia, the work follows seven women whose connection to natural forces establishes continuity with ancestral memory, spirits, and the landscape of the steppe.
Giuliana Cunéaz, Quantum Vacuum Set within a virtual environment performed by an actor, the work merges ritualistic and religious references with digital space, creating a hybrid environment between spirituality and technology.
Bjørn Melhus, Auto Center Drive Using reconstructed voices of cultural icons including James Dean, Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Jim Morrison, the work recontextualizes familiar figures from popular culture and examines how media continues to shape collective memory.
Chen Zhou, The Story of Nanka Gulu and Iron Hawk The film follows a drone that escapes from a factory in search of ancient wisdom. After being adopted and renamed by Nanka Gulu, the machine gradually reconnects with nature, reflecting on technological alienation and the human desire to return to the natural world.
Bjørn Melhus, Sugar In a post-apocalyptic future, the humanoid robot SUGAR attempts to restore human touch and emotional connection. Encountering a man isolated in an underground techno-environment, the robot tries to lead him outside, raising questions about self-awareness and isolation in contemporary capitalist society.
Alexandra Dementyeva, Alien Space Combining imagery of aliens, robots, and television culture, the installation explores how myths evolve within technologically driven societies. The work imagines “space” as a symbolic realm populated by new gods and fictional beings, questioning the boundaries between imagination, media, and belief.
Over the past couple of months, Charli XCX has been teasing a new album and shared the singles ‘Rock Music’ and ‘SS26’. My guess was that ‘SS26’ – more thoughts on that song soon – would be included on the pop star’s forthcoming record, while ‘Rock Music’ was more of a discourse-stirring one-off. It turns out both will be included on the just-announced Music, Fashion, Film, which will be released on July 24. That’s the artwork below: a black-and-white photo of John Cale, Marc Jacobs, and Martin Scorsese shot by frequent collaborator Aidan Zamiri.
According to Charli’s Instagram post, Music, Fashion, Film is “11 songs, 30 minutes, 5 seconds.” That’s a pretty sweet runtime that, to me, suggests the record may not be as portentous as its cover art and title.
Earlier this year, Charli XCX released her companion album for Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The new album, of course, will serve as her proper follow-up to BRAT.
In this segment, we round up the best albums released each month. From Aldous Harding to feeble little horse, here are, in alphabetical order, the best albums of May 2026.
Aldous Harding, Train on the Island
Welcome to Aldous Harding’s island. You’re free to leave anytime you like, but the New Zealand artist is happy to show you around. There are no palm trees here; just the one tree that she used to climb, presumably as a child. Forget about the sensation of floating on the ocean blue; instead, lose yourself in questions like, “When I hit the ocean I was only a spark/ Who brought me up the stem with no love in their heart?” You’ll have to get by eating rocks and plants, but you can dance just to dance. You can get together with friends once in a while, but in the end, of course, it’s just you and your reflection. “I have met my sleeping self/ Things she knows keep me around/ I hope I’m more than I think about,” Harding sings towards the end of her insular yet inviting Warm Chris follow-up. Read the full review.
In the decade-plus since American Football’s reunion, Mike Kinsella has reserved some harrowing lyrical specificity for his other project Owen, aware that it’s much less subject to scrutiny. Reeling from a divorce he’s already addressed on the last couple of Owen records, however, he leans into the vulnerability on the band’s first album in seven years, pointing fingers while claiming responsibility for the mess he’s created. “I can’t bathe in your malaise anymore/ I’d rather be profane than chaste and bored,” he sings deep into the storm of the record, which is dramatic and ambitious, yes, but will probably prove less divisive than some of us early listeners assumed. It’s exploratory, unmoored, and self-aware, though never to the point of rupturing the mythos of American Football. Read the full review.
Broken Social Scene’s new album, Remember the Humans, urges you to think of music in organic terms. The title of the Canadian collective’s first album in nearly a decade came from Charles Spearin, who initially framed it as a joke: it sounds like the AI version of their seminal 2002 LP You Forgot It in People. The songs get lost in the haze of personal memory, eulogize individual people, and put relationships under the microscope, but the group still has a unique way of reveling in abstraction: finding relief from the burden of identity and emotional truth in every cliche. It’s a joyously universal kind of homecoming. Read our inspirations interview with Broken Social Scene.
Once again recorded across the trio’s homes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the surprise follow-up to feeble little horse’s mesmerizing 2023 LP Girl With Fish isn’t exactly nostalgic for a time when tech and money were only responsible for human suffering in different ways, but it does grapple with the kind of discombobulation of memory and self that’s particular to this cultural moment. Using digital tools as an extension of their knotty group dynamic and Lydia Slocum’s wiry introspection, it interlaces sugary melodies and dizzying left turns that hardly pale in comparison to its predecessor, making it feel far from a tossed-off release.
By the time he released his disarmingly intimate self-titled album in 2023, Greg Mendez had spent a decade and a half as part of Philadelphia’s DIY scene. The singer-songwriter’s full-length debut for Dead Oceans is his most extensive collection to date, Beauty Land, one no less thematically heavy than its predecessor but more unburdened in its expression. The songs swell with unguarded emotion, whether looping a single thought over spare keyboard or slow-burning into miniature symphonies. Still recording almost entirely alone, Mendez finds ways to stir them outside the confines of his own reality; you could say that’s where the beauty comes from.
It’s not unusual for Iceage to obscure the narrative details of their songs. But when frontman Elias Rønnenfelt sings about catching “you like an ember falling down” on the opening track of their new album, he might as well be referring to the sparks of a new song that permeate the air when the band is in the studio. The more the Danish punks have pushed their sound forward since their 2011 debut New Brigade, the more days it’s taken them to record, with the last couple requiring – gasp – up to two weeks. Perhaps in reaction to the insularity of Rønnenfelt’s recent solo work, though, they returned to a speedier, raucous approach for For Love of Grace & the Hereafter, as if the ideas themselves were running for dear life. Read the full review.
Growing up in Oakland, California, Ivy Knight was tapped into different strains of alternative music: her dad brought her into the world of punk and experimental music early on, while her mom put on indie mixtapes in the car. That’s where we find the New York-based artist on the opening track of her debut album, Iron Mountain, where she sings, “You’re painting colors/ A picture for the sky/ The thin blue beads/ On the mirror while you’re speeding.” It becomes clear she’s absorbed those formative influences as deeply as she takes in her surroundings, her oneiric, often escapist imagery mirrored in frequent collaborator Deer park’s organic production. After a couple of blearier, stripped-back EPs, her first full-length homes in on subtly accented folk-rock, harking back to songwriters like Marty Robbins and Kate Wolf. If the vocal filters and synth flourishes position her as part of a new wave of alt-pop, they’re also just tools for her to blend into her own creative landscape, planting dreams into the earth. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with Ivy Knight.
Kacey Musgraves was wandering around her hometown in Texas when she noticed a small sign that said, “Golden, Texas: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.” She loved that it was “self-deprecating but also kind of confident,” she explained in an interview, which is the exact tonal balance she strikes on her latest record. Middle of Nowhere, in fact, begins “out there on the edge of the world, way past common sense” before Musgraves proclaims that she lives in “the great state of confusion.” Yet the album is less incoherent than her 2021 pop pivot star-crossed, and even more grounded than 2024’s Deeper Well, which focused less inspiringly on growth and healing. She’s not only more comfortable but more incisive in this transitional lane, leaning into the country classicism of Pageant Material and the radiance, if not the total brilliance, of Golden Hour. Read the full review.
How do you relate to Kevin Morby’s music if you’ve never even been to the Midwest? So much of the singer-songwriter’s work is beloved for its sense of place; I tend to appreciate it because it never seems entirely tied to a single one. Even as he delivers his most settled and, by all accounts, most Midwestern album to date, Morby’s life is split between Kansas City and Los Angeles, as he and his partner, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, are expecting their first child. Little Wide Open, in its grand simplicity and cautious optimism, doesn’t cling to Middle America as a nostalgic signifier but mines its abundance of imagery, honouring a beautiful region you can drive through but will always ride passenger to time. It’s the same where you are; Morby just makes the truth easier to embrace. Read the full review.
Lip Critic frontman Bret Kaser’s identity was purportedly stolen while the Brooklyn quartet was writing Theft World, the follow-up to their 2024 debut Hex Dealer; the thief turned out to be a devoted fan who believed he’d cracked the code to the band’s loosely conceptual universe. For a record that toes the line between absurdist fantasy and depressing realism, that origin story is almost too good, but the frenetic machinations of the record itself are even better: a melting pot of delirious characters, adrenaline-fuelled propulsion, and ingenious experimentation. Outlandish or not, it drives home the same truth: It’s happening to you right now. Read our inspirations interview with Lip Critic.
Towards the end of MUNA’s new album, Katie Gavin is convinced she’s past her prime – “and everyone knows it.” It’s a natural insecurity, but it’s laced with the understanding that “everyone” now implies a larger group of people who are far from friends or devoted fans. Whenever the band comes up in the lyrics of their latest, Dancing on the Wall – self-produced, like all their records, but with a heightened urgency – it’s to affirm that they’re doing alright, if with a knowing sigh. “Lots of people love me now,” Gavin sings to deal with an unrequited love, “Lots of people.” Whatever personal grievances these often dizzyingly infectious songs latch onto, they point to a band continuing to grow into themselves rather than self-consciously aging out of their peak. Read the full review.
Many of the songs on Thomas Dollbaum‘s new album – propulsive, twangy, torch-like – spring from the setting of his childhood, driven to a magically placeless evocation of memory, empathy, and solitude. “What the living do is prowl around on their hands and knees/ Among the bodies we leave behind,” declares one of its characters; another is purely happy to be alive. Aided by guitarist Josh Halperm, bassist Nick Corson, and MJ Lenderman on drums, guitar, and backing vocals, Dollbaum is always somewhere in between, pooling the feelings together like they’re one and the same. Read our Artist Spotlight interview with Thomas Dollbaum.
Generosity is deeply human, but the systems supporting it are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Modern-day philanthropists are no longer content with attending fundraising events and writing a check. They want evidence that capital is producing meaningful social returns.
That shift has coincided with a wider change in how wealth itself is managed. Digital platforms have transformed investing, personal finance, and business operations. Charitable giving is beginning to follow a similar path.
Here are the five tools that every philanthropist needs in 2026:
AI-Powered Research Tools
Information asymmetry is one of the oldest problems in philanthropy. There is no shortage of worthy causes. There are thousands of organizations, each making persuasive arguments for funding. The biggest challenge is deciding where to allocate the funds.
Artificial intelligence tools are helping philanthropists to choose the right organization by analyzing nonprofit filings, operational metrics, historical outcomes, and social trends at speeds that would previously have required teams of analysts. Rather than relying entirely on instinct or personal networks, donors can compare evidence across organizations and sectors.
Questions that once required weeks of research can now be answered relatively quickly:
Which educational initiatives demonstrate long-term outcomes?
Which healthcare interventions show measurable regional impact?
Which environmental projects continue producing results several years after funding?
The technology itself is not intended to replace judgment. It simply reduces the likelihood of making decisions with incomplete information. No wonder that a substantial number of organizations report some form of AI use in fundraising operations and donor engagement.
Impact Measurement Dashboards
Philanthropy has historically relied more heavily on narrative, but as data becomes increasingly accessible and transparent, impact measurement dashboards are emerging as valuable tools for tracking results in real time. Rather than relying on broad statements about “creating positive change,” donors can now see where funds are directed and monitor specific indicators tied to projects and measurable outcomes.
The data may include:
Number of students supported
Medical interventions funded
Households reached
Environmental improvements achieved
The shift also reflects changing expectations rather than simple technological advancement because people expect visibility into almost every activity involving money. Philanthropy has always moved at a slower pace compared to traditional investment activities. But the expectation gap is narrowing as donors have started to seek the same transparency from charitable initiatives.
That being said, this does not necessarily reduce charitable work to a statistical performance report. Social outcomes are rarely as straightforward as financial returns. Yet it is clear that donors want evidence alongside an idealistic narrative.
Digital Donor-Advised Fund Platforms
Donor-advised funds were once considered niche vehicles for structured charitable giving, but they are moving steadily into the mainstream. Digital platforms now allow philanthropists to manage charitable assets in ways that resemble investment portfolios.
Instead of maintaining separate records, donation histories, and tax documentation, users can operate within a single ecosystem that allows them to allocate grants, monitor balances, and organize long-term giving strategies.
Increasingly, these systems are also interacting with other financial tools. A philanthropist who actively manages investments through a trading app, for example, may monitor portfolio performance and charitable allocations within a broader digital financial ecosystem. As charitable giving becomes more strategic, some donors are treating philanthropy as one component of a wider capital allocation approach rather than an activity operating separately from personal wealth management.
This has also changed behaviour. Giving is no longer an annual event concentrated around tax deadlines or holiday campaigns. For many wealthy individuals, philanthropy is beginning to look like strategic capital allocation.
Collaborative Giving Platforms
The way people consume information and make decisions has also changed, thanks to technology. This is also affecting how they give.
Online charity circles and collaborative platforms allow groups of individuals to get together and support causes collectively. Donors in these circles place greater emphasis on community engagement and shared values than on traditional philanthropic structures.
This matters because philanthropy itself has become increasingly global in character.
Donors based in London may support climate initiatives in South America. Entrepreneurs in New York may fund healthcare projects across Africa or educational programs throughout Asia. Collaborative funding platforms make it happen.
Storytelling Platforms
The modern philanthropic toolkit may revolve around metrics and analytics, but stories continue to have great power over funders.
Digital storytelling platforms allow organizations and philanthropists to combine short-form video and interactive reporting to create richer forms of audience engagement material.
Trust develops through understanding, so the strongest philanthropic approaches combine analytical precision with emotional resonance. Long-term trust and sustained relationships are becoming more important than one-time donations. Because human connection remains the thing donors are ultimately investing in.
The Future of Giving
Technology often receives criticism for making experiences feel less personal, but philanthropy presents an interesting contradiction.
Modern philanthropists approach charitable capital with the same seriousness reserved for investment portfolios. They ask more questions. They demand more evidence. They expect greater transparency.
Technology is removing layers of administrative complexity that once separated donors from impact. It is creating faster feedback, better visibility, and more informed decision-making.
Most importantly, they create more room for the thing philanthropy has always depended on: people deciding that someone else’s future matters enough to invest in.
It’s not unusual for Iceage to obscure the narrative details of their songs. But when frontman Elias Rønnenfelt sings about catching “you like an ember falling down” on the opening track of their new album, he might as well be referring to the sparks of a new song that permeate the air when the band is in the studio. The more the Danish punks have pushed their sound forward since their 2011 debut New Brigade, the more days it’s taken them to record, with the last couple requiring – gasp – up to two weeks. Perhaps in reaction to the insularity of Rønnenfelt’s recent solo work, though, they returned to a speedier, raucous approach for For Love of Grace & the Hereafter, as if the ideas themselves were running for dear life while the quintet holed up in the middle of the woods, at the same studio where they made 2014’s Plowing Into the Field of Love. Rønnenfelt’s language may remain gory and rugged, but the band’s immediacy matches their gloriously lovestruck nature. You can’t fault them for scrambling to capture it fast.
1. Ember
Xylophone and electric guitar briefly interlock before the rambunctious assault that fires up For Love of Grace & the Hereafter, anchoring in a rhythm section that sounds remarkably in flux even as it holds tight. The declaration that unwinds the chorus, “I love you in an ominous way,” is the album’s first shining example of combustible yearning. It’s only the start, of course.
2. Match Head Girl
Case in point: “Make the world combust with every strike,” Rønnenfelt belts out at the end of the chorus, as if sneakily erasing the ego of “my world.” Though matching his gleeful abandon with loose instrumentation, ‘Match Head Girl’ is one of the album’s most dynamic cuts, as drummer Dan Kjær Nielsen and bassist Jakob Tvilling Pless seem to respond to the narrator’s whims in real time. When he commands the band to “rise a flood miraculously,” the guitars grow torrential, strings emerge. It may be a song about someone swimming in your arteries metaphorically, but Iceage make it feel as visceral as ever.
3. The Weak
The band leans into rockabilly-inflected punk on ‘The Weak’, which feels like a breath of fresh air despite its morbid imagery (“My little sparrow used to sing/ Teared its feathers on the bars, and I cut its wings/ Crushing its spirit might just help the lyrics” – I mean, Jesus). The “Life is for the weak” hook is memorably anthemic, but the highlight is a pennywhistle solo that injects the song with a real off-kilter charm.
4. No Fear
The theme of intravenous desire extends to ‘No Fear’, with Rønnenfelt singing, “In our morning of a million suns/ Course through my veins undressed.” But unlike ‘Match Head Girl’, the track’s clean guitar and roiling bassline suggest a morning-after soberness that stirs the singer’s poetry in half a dozen different directions: dizzied, blessed, gentle, reverent.
5. Salve for Every Sore
Switching up the tempo with rollicking drums, ‘Salve for Every Sore’ stands restlessly in the pit of infatuation, pushing the idea of heavenly love to the conviction that “heaven harbours envy for us.” Yet for all its divine vocabulary, Rønnenfelt is aching to communicate the intimate feeling of tangled bodies seeming to relieve persistent soreness. Seeming because Rønnenfelt sings “I get the impression you’re a salve for every sore,” though his voice betrays total confidence.
6. mother-of-pearl
Don’t let the lowercase title fool you: the bounciest song on the album – its centerpiece, even – is about the shitty circumstances surrounding a working girl’s pregnancy; “circumstances” being a euphemism for men, from the fresh-out-of-prison father to the narrator convinced he knows what she wants: “not feeling like foeticide,” “knocked up and hormonal.” You hope she gets away from it all.
7. Tender Blades
The band fittingly coils around a piercing groove, cutting a little deeper than the generally more lighthearted material on For Love. The subject, though, is still the extremes that love drives us towards: the fantasies we’d get high on, the God complex, and of course, the intersection of pleasure and pain, which Rønnenfelt relays in evocative terms: “It’s in your hammering of lilies where there would be nails.” There’s no question in his mind about whether it’s worth it, only a desperation to know the frenzy’s mutual.
8. 1835
The band remains locked in place, seemingly unbothered by Rønnenfelt’s grim reflections on mortality, but ‘1835’ feels more serviceable than a truly substantial piece of the record.
9. Star
For Love’s brightest aspirations are channeled into ‘Star’ – it’s hard to imagine many rock songs matching its brilliance this year. In the context of the album, though, it scans as an outpouring of desire after a trio of songs that shift focus, like ten minutes away from one’s object of affection that seem tantamount to death. And not a mortal but a celestial kind, so much so that when Rønnenfelt sings, “Every inch of my earth and sky/ You can occupy/ Cover me entirely,” the Earth appears small, merely a servant to the heavens. That’s how good sequencing elevates an already fantastic single.
10. Lifetime
Though powered by a classic chord progression, there’s a convulsive energy to ‘Lifetime’, which is fodder for Rønnenfelt’s insatiable poetry: “Feral moon, oh, how you claw through time/ My lone diluted friend,” he begins. Nielsen tumbles and crashes through every cymbal as the singer keeps gasping for air, capturing a ramshackle shimmer.
11. Holy Water
The song ratchets up the band’s wonky interplay as lively guitar undulates around a knotty beat; you wonder why it wasn’t a single.
12. True Blue
The album keeps its biggest outlier for last, but the track’s disarmingly shoegazey guitars befit the rapturous conclusion. You could imagine ‘True Blue’ originating as a Rønnenfelt solo cut, but the band bends it to their will here. “And just you wait, there’s worlds to unravel,” he bellows, keeping the for us silent. You can still hear it, though, reverberating through the band’s ceaseless momentum.
“YOOOOOO, I’ll tell you…” the unmistakable Leeds’ tone of Mel B bleeds through Formal Sppeedwear’s Garage gig, mid-song. The snatch of the Spice Girls’ ‘Wannabe’ is so sudden it barely registers with the crowd who are battling the arid, dense air during one of the hottest Mays on record. “I was so sweaty,” admits drummer Connor Wells, a few days later.
In a set of lightning tight, propulsive art rock and new wave, the Stoke on Trent-hailing band are pulling from an archive: Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) Robert Fripp-ish guitar sounds, the medicalised, altered vocal delivery of Fear of Music-era David Byrne and nods to XTC to produce something which resonates with both familiarity and daringness. Gloriously out of step with current waves of indie and filled with a frenetic sense of unpredictability, it keeps you on your toes. Visually the band’s energy is distributed between halo-haired Charlie Ball, striking in a Rambo headband and a Choose Life shirt, who is having a ball squeezing out fox-like screams from his guitar, and left-hand bassist and vocalist Beck Clewlow has an imperious look on his face, dressed in Pulp-ish flares and tucked in a short-sleeved top. While Wells provides the Motorik cum disco bedrock of beats.
It turns out ‘Wannabe’ was part of the quasi-improvisational way the band operate when they are playing live. “Accidents can produce something fantastic and worthwhile,” says Clewlow over Zoom. “I’ve made mistakes live and been like, ‘Shit, that was better than the record’. And I’ve got no idea how to do it again,'” adds Ball. “I never, ever play the same song twice. I’m always improvising and changing little things.”
Friends from college, Ball and Wells reconnected post-university, sharing a love of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Neu!. After helping out mutual friend Clewlow with a solo gig, “He went, ‘Why don’t you just actually join the band?'” recalls Wells.
Happy accidents haunt Formal Sppeedwear. The band’s name with its double ‘P’ was a result of a typo that appeared on a self-made cassette sent out to record companies. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just take out the ‘P’ later,'” says Clewlow, “and I never did. And it was on posters and stuff.”
They decided to keep it. “Sometimes people end up getting the first part of the name correct but not the second,” says Wells. “We’ve been ‘Formal Sppeedwater before, which was pretty good.”
Early on in their career, searching for the band on Google would come with the suggestion: “Did you mean: Formal Speedwear?” “And we had a T-shirt printed with that design, but then shortly afterwards Google started getting it right,” says Clewlow, sadly.
After a self-released tape in 2021, they signed to the Melodic record label in 2023 and released a couple of acclaimed singles the following year – ‘Bunto’ and ‘A Dismount’. They were seen as part of a burgeoning DIY North-West scene which included Westside Cowboy and TTSSFU. The band correctly see themselves as following the beat of their own drum, “There are some fantastic bands in the scene with quite a variety of sounds. But we don’t really know anyone who is making the stuff we are,” says Wells. “I don’t think location, for me at least, has ever played any part in what we do,” says Ball who adds that musical “rabbit holes” on the internet is where he gets lots of inspiration.
One of the trademarks of Formal Sppeedwear’s sound is the impenetrable lyrics. ‘Fleas’, from their forthcoming debut album, for example (“I go to sit down/ The furniture floats/One light beams at the shot in the rough/ While the Spotlights peel/ On the face that’s made up”) paints an abstract, dream-like picture. “I suppose it’s culturally closer to Fluxus,” says Clewlow. For him penning the words is about going inward and finding something which resonates. “If you sit down in silence and think of what you’re going to say lyrically, that’s not a very successful way to doing it,” he explains. “The hardest part is plucking one idea or phrase and using it as a seed to reach the other areas of your brain.” Tapping into the subconscious creates a flow. “I have no prerogative or agenda when I’m writing,” he says. “But it’s kind of oxymoronic because what I wanted to say comes out anyway.” The meanings may be elusive but not to the writer. “I don’t know how believable this will come across but I won’t release a song where the lyrics don’t mean a great deal to me. It seems like they’re bollocks sometimes but I’m not stupid and they resonate with me.”
Chasing this liminal space is the ultimate creative payoff for him. “Nothing else comes close to the feeling when you’re actively making something. The sooner I can get back to that state, the better. Whatever you make, however it sounds, whilst you’re in that state it has inherent value.” Drummer Wells provides the counterpoint. “I’m the exact opposite,” he says. “I’m terrible with spontaneity!”
Ball says writing a song usually begins with Clewlow laying down a drum machine and bass part. Wells says his role is “arranger”. “I’ll come in and write a B section then we’ll work out a structure, so we can put those parts together.” Then they will all throw different ideas into the mix, including collaging scraps of other, unfinished songs, into one megasong. It can take months of tracking individual songs with little ideas which can or get dropped right up to the mixing stage.
This unique approach has led to their excellent debut Punch Card, out in September, being self-produced. “Nobody had a tweak or play. It was handled by three people and they’re all in the band,” says Ball. “This classic idea of a band goes into the recording studio with a producer and comes out with a finished product, that doesn’t work for us,” Clewlow adds. “I never decided that I wanted to be a songwriter,” says Clewlow. “Ultimately, I wanted to emulate things that made me feel good and use that as a vehicle of expression.” This doggedly unique approach is what makes Formal Sppeedwear stand out from the fray. Zig-a-zig-ah, indeed.
Discovering Szilveszter Makó’s work feels more like wandering into an art exhibition than scrolling through a contemporary photography portfolio. His images settle into earthy tones and analogue grain, shaped by sets built from recycled materials and handcrafted props that make each frame feel carefully composed and, above all, made. Though Milan-based Makó shoots for Vogue, Numéro Paris and GQ Italia, every image remains stubbornly his.
What anchors this unorthodox approach is what his photographs decline to do. There is a long tradition, mapped by John Berger decades ago, of the image as a mirror held up to show you what you lack. In its prevailing mode, fashion photography sharpens this into instruction: here is the body, the face, the garment. Consume the ideal and orient yourself toward it. Makó’s photography refuses to engage in this negotiation. His subjects exist in a sealed world, partitioned from the impulse to compare and covet. “My photographs,” Makó explains, “are closer to figures in a novel. You encounter them and then you leave them behind.”
Instead, his images build worlds that answer only to themselves. Coloured by his upbringing in Lillafüred, Hungary, his work carries what he describes as “the discipline and resilience of the elder generation of Eastern Europeans”, a set of rules he still lives by. “I grew up with conservative restrictions,” he shares. “I fight them, but they shape who I am and the art I produce.” Constraint, in Makó’s hands, transforms into a kind of play: a subject’s face emerging from inside a human-sized paper boat, a cardboard replica of his childhood home worn as a recurring headpiece, and, more recently, figures flattened into two-dimensional planes.
As Makó moves between fine art, fashion, portraiture and commercial work, it becomes obvious that no brief, however commercial, fully domesticates his creative presence. You may leave his characters behind. The feeling of having met them is less obliging.
How did you first discover your passion for photography, and what led you to the world of fashion photography?
My path to photography was nonlinear and heavily influenced by creative exploration. I moved through many forms of creative expression before finding balance and clarity in photography.
Tracing back, my clearest memory of capturing my first impactful photograph begins in Lillafüred, Hungary, the town where I grew up. Each year, Hungary would host a prestigious academic competition for secondary school students called the Országos Középiskolai Tanulmányi Verseny. At this point in my life, I was painting, but a classmate suggested I try photography instead. The theme was ‘the soul of the space,’ and I photographed a classmate in my school’s attic using long exposure. She appeared almost ghost-like, suspended between light and shadow. That image stayed with me as it was the first time I felt that something moving through my mind could be held inside a lens.
During that same period — around 2007, when I was 15 — I was experimenting with hairdressing, a craft I picked up from my mother. Her salon was no longer in use, but it remained attached to the back of our house. Immersed in the emo scene and its subcultures, I began dying leopard spots, bleaching blunt bangs and carving out irregular styles on my friends’ hair. After each finished look, I would take a picture and share it on MySpace. To this day, I am very proud of that work.
Through every creative medium I explored, photography was an ever-present undercurrent. Photography is a medium I can control — something important and instinctive to me. There’s a fleetingness to photography; a moment passes in a breath. Yet in that moment, I have complete creative sovereignty over how it is held, framed and remembered. Each element is shaped by my choices. I sit behind the lens as much as I create the image before you.
I don’t like to define myself strictly as a photographer. I orchestrate the entire tableau. I craft the image before it ever meets the lens, and I want that to be heard and known. Photography allows me to establish boundaries while expressing the freedom of my art within a single image.
I can’t pinpoint when or why it happened, but fashion photography seemed to hold my attention more than any other form. I was drawn to people and the stories they tell through clothing, posture, expression and presence.
Photo credit: Szilveszter Makó
Your subjects are often framed in a box-like composition. Is this a deliberate technique in your storytelling, or does it emerge organically in your process?
The box is an era of mine, becoming a staple fixture two years ago. I invoke the word fixture as an amplification of my awe for it. It’s a very simple prop but it bears a certain longevity. There’s a mundane and ordinary straightforwardness I agree with, and it holds space to be explored further.
Many don’t know this, but I exist somewhere on the autism spectrum. My mind intertwines with the compulsions of OCD, cleanliness and the need for order. The box offers me this. The box is a boundaried perception, which allows me to enclose and frame something within a defined space.
Growing up in Hungary and witnessing the post-communist upheaval, it became second nature to need boundaries, follow rules and use order as a living mechanism. Structure was vital and defined the very fabric of daily life. I like restrictions and I like to be given rules, especially in the context of projects. Moreover, organisation, balance and precision act as both a mental refuge and a way of navigating my work.
You might notice in my recent work that I’ve moved to painting a box on the floor. It creates an entirely new feeling, something more spectral, airy and effortless. I will continue to use this technique until it exhausts itself within me — it hasn’t yet. A client will often suggest a different course, but if it still stirs something in me, it continues to live. Watch me reshape it, reframe it, reimagine it, and it will feel unfamiliar again, only renewed in its presence. The same applies to fashion. I have my pattern and style, but I will make the models scrunch, grab and pull the fabric into a new shape.
Photo credit: Szilveszter Makó
Some of your photographs feel like they’re holding their breath. Is unease something you’re drawn to?
Actually, I think they breathe. I always like an open lip and love when the shoulders and chest deflate, creating a quietly elegant and effortless anatomy. When I feel we are close to capturing the desired image, I usually ask the model or talent to take a big breath and exhale.
Do you ever imagine full stories behind your images, or do you prefer to let the viewer create their own interpretations?
That’s a really difficult question. I have passing thoughts, like fragments of details, or an obsession that’s captivating me at that very moment. These are spontaneous impulses that I want to weave into something resembling a story. But they do not exist as narratives yet. My images are built in balance with what is felt.
My autism and Eastern European background is tied in with this too. I become a difficult person because I still need restrictions. I only like a few things in this world, but once combined, this small bracket is powerful. Each detail has to be more than correct. It can come down to a strap on a heel or a fold in a coat. If I don’t like something, it’s dead to me.
Regarding the viewers, everyone has the freedom to voice their opinion, and I like to hear what people think of my work. Sometimes I digest their input and offer my own conclusion, while other times I don’t and just keep to myself. If I’m being told what to think, I retreat and continue to create at my free will.
Photo credit: Szilveszter Makó
Have you watched or heard anything lately that has inspired you?
I recently spent 42 days in China, where I visited the southwestern province of Yunnan. This was a solo trip during which I wanted to spend time with ethnic minority communities and understand the layered architecture of these subcultures. That’s why I travelled to Yunnan, where they have an ethnic minority group called the Yizu.
I took my time in Yunnan, visiting the remote villages and embedding myself in their customs. I was able to see how they make their clothing, which is rich in colour. They wear silver, handmade jewellery. I saw elderly women dressed so elegantly and wrapped in bright scarves, complemented by headpieces — and that is how they dress every day. I was shocked, in the best of ways. It was amazing, I am still lost for the right words to share my experience with others.
Spending time in Yunnan was an awakening for me. Look at my work: I am very against the use of loud colours. Now that I’ve lived among the Yi people, it has shifted something within me. I can’t say yet what, because I’m still digesting it, but it will definitely have an effect.
Over the past two years, I have also been educating myself on folklore, absorbing the traditional wares and their culture. It may not show predominantly in my work, but there are elements and subtle styling choices which embody it. Whilst in China, I collected an array of old fabrics, handmade hats dating from before the Qing Dynasty and lotus shoes. Wherever I go I look to preserve these folklore elements, If I am fortunate enough to acquire them.
Photo credit: Szilveszter Makó
What piece of literature has expanded your artistic vision lately?
Lately I’ve been going back to my roots and reading a lot of Gorky, but I’m also re-reading my favorite novels and poems by Hungarian poet and writer János Arany.
Not to brag, but I spent most of my life in a house half a minute away from the beach, so spotting the official start of summer was never exactly difficult. Now I live in a city, where tourists in sharongs and aggressively oversized woven hats begin appearing sometime around still-cold spring, walking around like every street corner leads directly to Santorini. My indicator, however, has stayed the same for years: Havaianas on the street. There’s always a small moment of investigation involved, are they being worn by the tourist above or a person who genuinely means it? This time though, I looked down to a denim hem and found Isabel Marant in the form of Havaianas. Summer is definitely here.
I didn’t always find flip-flops easy to justify (this is being written with an open tab of already-purchased square ones), but this season I can admit they’ve finally grown on me. I still think they’re hard to style, and I still encounter far more outfits I wouldn’t personally defend than ones I would, but here we are. Isabel Marant, on the other hand, never really had that problem. “To me, they represent the Brazilian quintessence of joy, freedom, and summer nonchalance,” she tells Vogue. Now, they also come with a layer of Parisian je ne sais quoi, and to be honest, I wouldn’t even flinch if I saw them at a party that has never seen sand in its life.
The collaboration moves between two silhouettes. The first is a reworked version of the classic Top Havaianas (available in red and beige), this time layered with Isabel Marant’s signature prints and finishes. The second pair, arguably the standout, comes in black and cream, with a more structured, almost inflated construction: voluminous straps, faux leather, and rounded silver studs, making it feel closer to a jacket than a flip-flop. One you’ve also accidentally stepped into.
in traffic. Comfort, though, depends on several health-linked details beyond map distance. Noise exposure, indoor temperature, safe walking routes, and stable household routines all affect recovery after work or study. A careful review helps renters choose spaces that protect rest, conserve energy, and make everyday movement feel easier rather than draining.
Start With Commute Reality
A useful search begins with the actual journey, rather than the station name on a listing. Many renters compare walking time, transfer frequency, and road crossings before selecting a room for rent Brickfields, because these details shape their daily comfort more than photos do. A room near transit may still feel taxing if pavements are uneven, junctions stay congested, or late traffic keeps the body alert after dark.
Check Walking Conditions
Distance alone says very little about how the body experiences a route. Shade, lighting, and visible crossings can reduce heat stress and mental tension during the walk home. Congested corners often raise irritation after a long day. Brief visits in daylight and evening hours reveal puddles, poor drainage, blocked paths, and blind spots that listing images rarely show with enough honesty.
Listen Before Deciding
Noise affects sleep depth, heart rate, and next-day concentration more than many renters expect. Rail lines, bus stops, cafés, and main roads each create distinct patterns across the day. Quiet at noon may shift after sunset. Two short visits often provide a clearer understanding. Window seals, curtains, and gaps around doors also influence how much sound enters the sleeping area.
Measure Room Airflow
Air movement has a direct effect on thermal comfort and overnight recovery. A smaller room with cross ventilation often feels better than a larger one that traps heat. Window position, ceiling height, and sun exposure all matter. Late afternoon warmth can linger for hours. Natural circulation also helps reduce damp odor, heavy air, and that stale sensation common in closed spaces.
Review Shared Space Use
Shared kitchens, bathrooms, and laundry areas influence daily stress more than floor plans suggest. Comfort drops quickly when those spaces are dirty, crowded, or poorly repaired. Functional appliances and reliable cleaning habits support steadier routines. Housemates matter too. Respect for privacy, quiet conversation, and simple schedules often shape well-being as much as the mattress, desk, or wardrobe inside the room.
Test Storage Practicality
A tidy viewing can hide the strain of limited storage. Real comfort depends on having room for clothing, work materials, shoes, and personal items without blocking movement. Shelves and drawers make a clear difference. Space beneath the bed can help as well. If belongings spread into walking areas, the room may begin to feel cramped within the first few weeks.
Ask About Night Access
Late returns are common for shift workers, students, and people managing long commutes. Entry arrangements should support that reality without adding tension. Bright corridors, secure gates, and dependable keys improve peace of mind. Rigid lockout rules can create avoidable stress. Renters should ask how visitor access, parcel delivery, and urgent entry are handled before any payment is made.
Compare Total Monthly Cost
Rent alone does not show the full physical or financial burden of a living arrangement. Utility bills, internet charges, deposits, and cleaning fees can shift the true monthly total. Clear figures help people plan with less anxiety. A slightly higher rent near transport may still be sensible if it cuts fuel spending, reduces ride fares, and saves hours otherwise lost in traffic.
Look For Nearby Essentials
When basic services are nearby, daily well-being improves. Grocery shops, clinics, pharmacies, and dependable food options reduce strain during busy weeks or periods of illness. Rainy evenings make that even more important. Some areas near stations still feel inconvenient in practice. If every small errand requires another ride, fatigue can build across the week and disturb regular rest.
Read Rules With Care
House rules affect comfort in subtle yet lasting ways. Limits on guests, cooking, laundry hours, or appliance use can shape sleep, meals, and privacy. Fair policies may support order, though vague terms often create friction. Written details are safer than verbal promises. Renters should review payment dates, notice periods, and repair duties early, so expectations remain clear from the start.
Conclusion
Choosing a comfortable room near public transport involves more than checking price and distance on a screen. Lasting ease comes from quiet sleep, healthy airflow, safe access, fair costs, and workable shared routines. Thoughtful renters take time to assess the route, the building, and the household environment before deciding. That extra effort often leads to a home that feels calmer, healthier, and much easier to live in each day.
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