About Amy Laughinghouse
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Auschwitz-Birkenhau: Holocaust Victims Must Never Be Forgotten
It’s the suitcases that finally reduce me to tears. A pile of suitcases behind a glass wall in one of the endless cell blocks at Auschwitz. Each is carefully labeled in bold letters with a name—the names of men, women and children who probably thought that they had already experienced the worst that life could deal them, being forcibly relocated from their home.
“Jews were told they were going for resettlement in the East,” explains my guide, Dagmara Wiercinska. They couldn’t have imagined the horrors that awaited them here, about 40 miles west of Krakow, Poland.
I’ve already seen too much. Touring block upon block, Dagmara has explained how Holocaust prisoners here were treated like commodities. Whatever few possessions they brought with them—things they thought they would need to build a new life—were taken from them upon their arrival and stored in warehouses which guards called “Canada,” because that was viewed as a place of enormous wealth. What remains here now are those items that the Nazis had not yet sold when Auschwitz was finally liberated on January 27, 1945. (more…)
Show Us Your Ascot: Fashion Under Coronavirus Lockdown
Royal Ascot is galloping ahead this June without a live audience–but fans are asked to fundraise through fashion at home. So, is it finally time to harness the fillies? By which, I mean…do I really have to wear a bra again?
There are few occasions on the British social calendar more sartorially daunting than Royal Ascot. The Queen herself is in the habit of attending this legendary thoroughbred racing meet near Windsor, and the bold and the beautiful have been flocking to the big event for more than 300 years. (Well, not the same people, mind you, although a few attendees appear so well-preserved that you might wonder).
Events have historically kicked off with the Queen’s procession from neighbouring Windsor. (Yes, Liz is the tiny regal canary in the yellow suit). Hey, it’s called “Royal” Ascot for a reason.
Rocking up in the proper attire has always been essential. Men were required to wear a top hat in the coveted Royal Enclosure, exposed midriffs were verboten in the Royal, Queen Anne and Village Enclosures, and fancy dress” (as in costumes, not “fancy dresses”) were forbidden everywhere. Daisy Duke cut-offs were, presumably, right out.
So, while the dress code has traditionally varied according to where you were seated, 2020 is proving to be the great equaliser. Because this year we’ll all be sat at home, watching the horses haul Ascot on TV from the comfort of our settee.
A masterclass in how to look fabulous at Royal Ascot’s Windsor Enclosure.
“Fantastic,” you might think, breathing a sigh of relief as you unzip your jeans another inch, watching with morbid fascination as your muffin top expands like a marshmallow in the microwave. (I jest, of course. Clothes with zippers are like, sooooo 2019).
But not so fast! Organisers for Royal Ascot, which runs from June 16-20 this year, are encouraging sofa-bound spectators to celebrate in style to raise money for four frontline charities: the National Emergencies Trust, NHS Charities Together, the Care Workers’ Charity and the Berkshire Community Foundation. Suited-and-booted studs and coltish fashionistas can participate by ponying up £5 on the fundraising page and posting photos of their race day attire–complete with de rigeur headwear–accompanied by the hashtags #StyledWithThanks and #RoyalAscot.
I thought I had retired this feathered fascinator, but I may have to dust off the old molting peacock (not a euphemism…or is it?) for Royal Ascot 2020.
It is, indisputably, a worthy cause, and super-fit Instagram influencers–those beautiful people who have spent the entirety of lockdown subsisting on wheatgrass fasts and perfecting yoga pretzel poses–will doubtless welcome an opportunity to giddy up in their glad rags for the greater good.
But many mere mortals, myself included, have looked upon the corona quarantine as an opportunity to let our hair down, quite literally, morphing into sofa-squatting Sasquatches with unsettling speed. We have learned that whisky works just as well as a medium for breakfast cereal when you can’t be arsed to stand in line for half an hour outside the grocery store to buy a pint of milk. In lieu of lifting weights at the gym, we hoist plates piled high with pasta. (One must somehow dispose of those 50 bags of stockpiled linguini languishing in the cupboard).
So we might bridle at the notion of exchanging our elastic waistbands for buttoned-up waistcoats, of abandoning baggy sweatshirts for unforgiving “bodcon” dresses that cling to our lumps and bumps like sausage skin–and then posting those pics for all the world to see on social media.
For me, the idea of simply strapping on a bra is a total ‘mare. My nags were first out of the gate in mid-March, and after a few months of free-range grazing (although not yet grazing my waistline, thank you very much), I’m not keen to wrangle them back into the stable.
Had I thought about it sooner, the most effective fundraiser I could have organised would have been to ask all my female friends to donate £5 for every hour that I wore a bra during lockdown, operating on the assumption that people will only give you money when they want to see you properly miserable. Applying this retrospectively, that would amount to a measly £20, but I would’ve gone all out (or rather, reined them both in), if I’d raised the stakes and asked folks to place an exotic wager on my daily double.
But despite the fact that I’m hardly at my jockey weight, I’ve got to face the facts. I need to get back in the saddle–or at least into undergarments. I’ll show you my Ascot if you show me yours.
I bet the Queen was pissed when she saw what happened to her missing swan.
Weird and Wild Styles from The Met Gala Ball
New York, New York: Bad news for fans of freaky fashion. Manhattan’s Met Gala has been indefinitely postponed, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The annual fundraising fete, which benefits the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is best known as a balls-to-the-wall competition among outrageously clad celebrities attempting to induce a) shock, b) lust, c) jealousy, d) outrage, e) retinal haemorrhage f) all of the above, as they swan up the museum’s red carpeted steps each May.
Grammy Award-winning Cardi B at the Met Gala Ball in 2019. Photo found here.
While the stars may be unable to shine at the gala this year, fear not. For your viewing confusion, I’m hooking you up with some of the weirdest, most wanton confections from the past—and looking back at the far-fetched creations from the Met’s 2016 exhibit “Manus x Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology.”