Cherry Glazerr Pussy Riot The Love Witch Smart Girl Club
Brie Moreno
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In some ways, this issue feels like a tale of two halves. In my last editor’s letter I spoke about how the world had completely changed during the zine’s production period — and the same can probably be said again. Trump is president, Brexit is in full swing and our Prime Minister continues to attack the rights of women, disabled people, and the working class. Most of the time I feel like i’m living in a weird dystopian film about an apocalyptic millennial nightmare. The tampon tax win of last year now potentially sees the VAT on our sanitary products being given to an antiabortion charity. The commodification of social politics has become so absurd that Kendall Jenner can now attempt to takedown police brutality via a Pepsi advert. Our ability to be shocked by any of the above has been near diminished. Maybe this issue represents a marked move away from ‘girlishness’, not necessarily as a visual language, but as a state of mind. The pages of this zine are still filled with a saccharine sweetness, but it’s now an aesthetic that oozes and bleeds. I think we’ve all come to realise that a subversive selfie or self-love sticker isn’t going to change the world, at least in the same way it felt like it potentially could a couple of years ago. As myself and my friends move towards our mid-twenties, conglomerates continue to cash in on the beliefs we cultivated online during our adolescence to a near-laughable degree,
and we’re all individually working out how to exist under this new era of capitalistactivism. In many ways, as the world shifts around us, I can’t help but feel fourth wave feminism has been fragmented. So, while building strong, tangible communities has never seemed more vital — I also feel like it’s important to embrace and explore darkness while unpicking issues that none of us are sure of the right answer to. From witches that kill men using sex magic, or makeup as warpaint to face the world in, to unpicking the duality and under representation of the violent woman as a subversion of traditional femme gender roles vs. embracing vulnerability as a source of power. That’s also not to say the love-letters to the women who raised us, odes to femme friendship, or the grassroots feminist groups and activists using positivity to combat poison aren’t equally as important or necessary. Much of the work within this issue is probably as tumultuous as most of our heads feel right now — and I think that in itself is okay too. Because when trying to combat inequality feels like an endless, exhausting and futile task, it’s worth remembering that our inner conflicts are important. While our selfies and social media rants may not change the world, creating work and simply existing when everything seems impossible is a small, but important, resistance in itself.
Ione Gamble editor in chief
Online Editor Gina Tonic
Music Editor Luna Cohen-Solal
Special thanks to: Kiersty Boon, Eden Young, Hatti Rex, Alfie Gleeson, edward meadham, Ian, Rachel Hodgson and Jender Anomie.
Cover one: Clementine Creezy of Cherry Glazerr shot by Parker Day. Cover two shot by Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee. Styled by Neesha Tulsi Champaneria. Makeup by Mona Leanne. Hair by Terri Capon.
COPYRIGHT & DISCLAIMER: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in part or whole without written permission from the publishers. ©2017 Polyester Zine limited. The views expressed in Polyester are those of the respective contributors and Editor in Chief, and are not neccessarily shared by the publisher, these parties cannot be responsible for them. For all enquiries contact hello@polyesterzine.com
A Day
In The
Life
Words by Georgina Jones. Illustrated by Tilly Barker.
I wake up, spread out on my single bed. This is the only time of day I’m nude; the only time of day my naked flesh isn’t layered on top of each other in its fleshy rolls. Spread out, my body flattens and settles still. Instead of grasping at my fat as usual, my hands glide over warm, soft skin. The gentlest of downy hairs makes it feel like velvet. If I close my eyes and just touch, there’s nothing to hate about it at all. * Getting ready is a Special K advert. Pinched hips and stuck zips: Finally, we’re in. I press my hand against my stomach and picture myself and my outfit if I were thin. I imagine my fat spilling through my fingers. Growing. Dropping. It pools around my surprisingly slender ankles. My belly button drifts away from me, across the floor. There’s a distance and vastness of my frame that feels familiar. I let the image go, rewind. I’m back to the present, pushing my body into itself and scrutinising. I press another hand against my tummy and turn sideways. I breathe in, in, in. My life has always been about holding it all back. * I love eating in public, which I know I’m not supposed to. I fist crisps into my mouth, wipe greasy hands on stubbly bus seats and open another pack. If they glare, I glare back. But mostly people look ashamed, because I am meant to be ashamed. My body is an embarrassment and that embarrassment is catching. Still, I tug my skirt to cover a little more dimpled thigh. When standing on the bus - which is only in dire emergencies - I have to hold onto something. I wish I didn’t. I wish I were stock still as the
bus swerved, like the most skilled surfer on a chewing gum and laminate wave. At least I have the consideration to stick my chewing gum under the seat. * At Rowan’s house, I cover my rolls and lack of appropriate clothing with a sofa cushion. Her mam glares at me: this is an ornamental cushion. Her brother stares almost exclusively at my tits, that are speckled with a hormone handful of spots and splotches. In my mind, the redness compliments my English rose cheeks and his Pantone level appreciation for colours is showing. In reality, tits are tits. And what’s the point of a fat girl without tits? Rowan’s hair shines yellow through strands of lilac. She knows it’s a bad dye job. I know it’s a bad dye job. I pretend to like it anyway. We always hold hands as we walk. Even if it’s only to the shops. It’s comfortable. It’s safe. Rowan’s fingers
Does Your
pussy Have a Brand?
Pearl. Makeup yling by Alanna bbes Ginsberg. St Ho Ione Gamble. by by y ph iew gra erv Photo ticia Llesmin. Int Le by ir Ha . zzi by Amy Stro
Gina Tonic & Ione Gamble get to know the woman behind feminist horror flick The Love Witch. Photography by Cat Rose Roif. Featuring Samantha Robinson as Elaine, wearing ori ginal costumes from the fi lm Hair and makeup by Ren Bray.
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a result of what ‘society’ or whatever was telling us - to be in competition with each other, to judge each other.” Smart Girl Club both acts as, and counteracts this, as a space for misfits, especially the women of colour who are largely excluded from feminist discourse. Urban Feminism, coined by Destiny, is “for the oppressed ghetto women of the inner city who may not know the word but believes she deserves to be free amongst all patriarchal limitation.” It is not a text-book, label or aesthetic but feminism concerned with the women in their neighbourhoods. It is concerned with the issues they face on the daily, such as street harassment and gentrification, as it is with acknowledging and uplifting their strength and accolades. Urban Feminism is embedded in every aspect of Smart Girl Club, with Destiny telling me about the collective’s visual representation: “I like to make it relatable to women like myself who grew up mad hood, super black & brown, and super ghetto fabulous. Pictures of Aquanet and black gel and box perms, archives of my cousins at the Puerto Rican parade, pictures of women in the Bronx, photo series’ of girls I used to hang out with — that’s all relative to the black and brown identity and it’s relatable to the women, like myself, who grew up the way I did. You don’t see that too much, radical feminism and female urban nostalgia… but that’s where my equilibrium lays, and that’s the middle ground for a lot of the women in Smart Girl Club.” Creating diverse images of feminism and womanhood has been at the centre of the collective, with Destiny and Milah producing and co-directing some of the most original music videos of the past years to accompany Destiny’s releases as Princess Nokia. It’s difficult to pick a favourite from the videos, partly due to the amount they have created in only three years, but highlights include the reimagined cyber girlhood in “Nokia”. The video features cameos from Junglepussy, Dai Burger and K Rizz alongside Destiny in a dreamy sleepover with nods to iconic TV show such as Taina and Proud family and
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Cherry Glazerr
Photography by Parker Day. Wardrobe and set styling by Kimberly Marie. Words by Ione Gamble.
by Lora Mathis
BRIE
Ambivalently Yours