xfxtheblog

The voice of xfx is multiple, highly individual yet universal. Together we create www.xfxthemag.com, a webzine, published the first Tuesday of the month. We are a cosmopolitan collective. xfx is a shared desire, a space to test ideas; This is our Tumblr xfxthemag - the genesis

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from the Huffington Post:

'The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee And Tawakkul Karman all received the honour, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday...'

click the link for full article.

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first paragraph:

'Are you a man who cares about animals but thinks it is fine to treat women like one? Then Caso Diablo is the place for you. The world's first vegan strip club, in Portland, Oregon – a hippyish town in the US that prides itself as the most vegan-friendly in the country – serves up meat- and diary-free chilli cheese fries, chocolate/strawberry cheesecake and mushroom burgers along with the naked women...'

click the link if you dare. --djbrass

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Writer and performer Mindy Kaling shares her thoughts...funny and smart, of course. Check it out. --djbrass

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I had the great pleasure of meeting the women behind Aardvark on Sea. Aardvark began life as a tea room and craft gallery based on the St. Leonards seafront on the South East coast of England. Now based in Hastings Old Town, they are Aardvark on Sea, a design/art team. Click the link to read  our conversation about what Lesley and Pea do, and how they came to be ‘outsider designers.’

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In the linked article, Paul Harris writes about 2 districts in New York,  exposing the wildly different life experiences in each. Why should we care? Because I suspect that this is just a small example of what is happening everywhere...take the time to read about it. What can be done, I wonder?

My thoughts wander to the recent London riots, global race issues, the 'Arab Spring' (on which I have other thoughts) and the surge of blatantly clueless American Republican party rhetoric. Here in the UK,  Cameron's 'community' agenda is a ghost, and was probably written with disappearing ink.

We are connected. These events have crossover points--where do we start trying to make changes in our own lives that might have an effect on things? is that possible?

--djbrass

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a brief excerpt:

'...She is set to become Denmark's first woman prime minister. Incumbent Lars Lokke Rasmussen has admitted defeat...'

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for real. this is serious. look, I know it is contentious, but a woman's right to choose is an important issue. we take many things for granted these days...let's take a moment and think about what this could have meant if Downing Street had supported this proposal

--djbrass

Downing Street forces U-turn on Nadine Dorries abortion proposals

No 10 decides to vote against Tory backbench amendment seeking to stop charities offering abortion counselling.

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Barbara Ellen calls out David Cameron on his disrespectful behaviour:

'...After inadvertently amusing the throng by telling a female she is "frustrated" (like sexually frustrated, geddit?), instead of calming things down, and responding, Cameron launched into what he clearly thought was nose-snortingly witty repartee. What is this – Westminster "open mike"? If so, throw the man a boater and some tap shoes. Don't be shy, Dave, it's the way you tell 'em!

Joking apart, and away from the wearisome faux-laddishness, there is the pressing detail that Cameron failed to do his job properly. Whatever people think of Dorries, the fact remains that she deserved to have her Commons questions courteously received and dealt with. A prime minister shouldn't be allowed to get away with not answering questions, especially not of this kind. How the balance of power is weighted in a coalition, and the ensuing discontent on both sides, is a tinderbox issue. Cameron must have been heartily relieved that he managed to get away with not responding. Some might say that this is the mark of a skilful politician (dodging the bullet, living to fight another day). Personally I thought Cameron betrayed himself...'

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from Huffington Post, an interesting article about the recent fired Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and why we should care about this recent event. I am not sure quotas are the answer, but read what Sue Black has to say...

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There is no wrong way to have a body, a re-post as fashion week begins:

A beautifully written blog post from http://www.hanneblank.com/blog/2011/06/23/real-women/

Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing.

Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever.

Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them.

Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides.

Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not.

Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to.

Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced.

Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real.

There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla:

There is no wrong way to have a body.

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It's all about the 'D'

This month's issue of xfxthemag is centred on 'D'. We will be revealing our content in a few parts this month, but right now 2 interviews and some fiction and images are up on http://www.xfxthemag.com

We were fortunate to talk to Aardvark on Sea, the team behind the inspiring and entertaining manifesto prints and other artworks. Also joining us this month is Kinga Malisz, a fashion designer that graduated from Central St. Martin's in London and is now working in Paris at a big fashion house.

My own participation in this issue has reinforced what I already knew: I am so very lucky to know so many talented, creative women!  I could have easily filled an entire issue on my own, just interviewing my acquaintances and friends...so I hope to add a few more interviews to the magazine or here on xfxtheblog:  A lingerie designer that is making bespoke & couture accessories, an artist turning her hand at interiors and fabric design, a graphic designer that is learning a new skill and growing her business, a wedding dress designer (and collector of lace) that has recently gotten married, an architect finding her way from Paris to Los Angeles...my own mother is starting to make jewelry, after a lifelong love of curating her own private bead collection.

We have crept towards the idea of 'Dad' and suspect that by issue xfxtheF, that 'father' will take on yet another form as we revisit such a large archetype.

Other thoughts that come to mind, 'the D': dining, dare, death (as I reflect on the close of a year's grieving for my grandfather), diversion, debt, divinity...

What does 'D' mean to you?   

--djbrass

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this very thoughtful blog writes more intentionally than most beauty blogs. as the 'fall season' is upon us and it is natural to go trolling the shops, check out this post by Anne.

an excerpt

'...As someone who is writing obsessive articles in order to refine my own sense of dress, I'm not one to deny that creativity, innovation, and dedication to quality are crucial to image-making. But the fashion elite today and their notion of beauty offend my sense of harmony simply because they have it ass-backwards, by putting the object before the person wearing it. Uniqueness, novelty, and scarcity value have been conflated with actual value, which is not manufactured at the factory or even the atelier but created by the wearer, by using and loving something to death: clothes bought for the sheer thrill of possessing a coveted object or for the sake of novelty—even the fail-safe "investment" pieces the magazines are constantly pushing, "you won't regret it!"—will languish if they are not specifically tailored to the owner's use, in which case, they would be better off with a curator....'

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from tcwmag.com

written by Chicago attorney and writer Kimberley Egonmwan.

At best, black women are featured in a handful of major motion pictures any given year. Given that dismal fact, I must ask myself why, with the limitless possibilities that fiction offers, does the black woman character almost always end up in the same position: needing to be helped by Caucasian characters, while remaining in a subservient role? With all of the characters we’ve had to suffer through, what makes anyone think this kind of movie is still okay?

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News of the world

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'...The book tells the story of 14-year-old Maggie, who according to its blurb "is transformed from being overweight and insecure to a normal-sized teen who becomes the school soccer star". It's not out until October, but so disquieting is the cover image that perhaps we may, in this case, allow ourselves to judge the book by it. Maggie is depicted as dumpy, pigtailed, wearing an unflattering jumper (has nobody told her that wide lateral stripes aren't a good look when you're carrying a few extra pounds?), staring into the mirror, presumably dreaming of a thinner self who will one day wear the tiny pink prom dress she's holding wistfully to her chest.'

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'...Speaking at the annual Wikimania conference, Wales said, “At the moment, we are relatively poor in a few areas; for example, biographies of famous women through history and issues surrounding early childcare." The not-for-profit online encyclopaedia, which Wales launched in 2001, is currently “very strong” in some areas, while others suffer from a lack of diversity of contributors...'