Thursday 30 September 2021
Wednesday 29 September 2021
Tuesday 28 September 2021
Prince Charles launches new TV channel to tackle climate change
Charles launches TV channel on fighting climate
change as ‘we must act now’
Sian Elvin
Saturday 25
Sep 2021 12:01 pm
Prince Charles is the editor-in-chief of new
environmental channel RE:TV, on Amazon Prime Video (Picture: Getty Images)
The Prince of Wales will tell the world how we are
‘running out of time’ to defeat the climate emergency on his new TV channel.
Prince
Charles is the editor-in-chief of new environmental channel RE:TV, which is
available today on Amazon Prime Video.
The channel
aims to encourage businesses and individuals around the world to actively work
towards sustainability.
Speaking in
The Time to Act is Now film, Prince Charles said: ‘I’ve spent a lot my lifetime
trying to engage people and businesses with the issues and solutions of the
climate crisis.
‘RE:TV was
therefore set up with the aim of capturing the will and imagination of humanity
and champion the most inspiring solutions for sustainability from around the
world.
‘I hope
that with this partnership with Prime Video we can bring these inspiriting
innovations and ideas to a wider audience and demonstrate together what is
possible in the pursuit of a sustainable future.’
He added
the films are an ’embodiment’ of his more than four-decade vision to address
pressing concerns including a rapid transition to net-zero carbon emissions.
RE:TV also
includes a direct plea from His Royal Highness Prince Charles that ‘we must act
now’ – though he says there ‘is hope’.
Programmes
on the channel provide a showcase of the best examples from across the world of
how to tackle climate change.
Curated by
Charles, the RE:TV team has identified businesses that specialise in the most
innovative approaches to reusing and recycling.
The films
cover a wide range of topics including recycling coffee, reseeding rainforests,
refining solar, revitalising cities and remodelling fashion.
The names
of some of the programmes are ‘Remapping Restoration’, ‘Recycling Everything’
and ‘Refuelling Aviation’.
RE:TV
worked with local TV crews and international partners to highlight important
projects across Asia, Africa, North America and Europe.
They intend
to be positive and forward-thinking – showing how human innovation has the
potential to save the planet if cultivated in the right way.
Amazon
Prime members can watch it here or by searching for RE:TV on their Prime Video
app on mobile, tablets, smart TVs or Fire TV.
Monday 27 September 2021
The Servant - Official Trailer | Starring Dirk Bogarde / Losey and Pinter’s nightmarish version of Jeeves and Wooster
SEE ALSO: https://tweedlandthegentlemansclub.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-servant.html
The Servant review – Losey and Pinter’s nightmarish
version of Jeeves and Wooster
The subversive 1963 classic crackles with undertones
of class, sexuality and communism, with Dirk Bogarde at his finest as the
sociopathic manservant
Peter
Bradshaw
Peter
Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Fri 10 Sep
2021 09.00 BST
Joseph
Losey’s monochrome psycho-horror satire from 1963 is now re-released; it took
an expatriate American to orchestrate this very English festival of class,
fear, sex and shame with its menacing screenplay by Harold Pinter. Dirk Bogarde
stars as the sinister manservant who gradually gains psychological control over
his weak-willed master played by James Fox. The film was first considered unreleasably
upsetting and weird, and notoriously gathered dust for a year on the shelf
while Bogarde was humiliatingly forced to make another of the cheesy Doctor
comedies he was trying to put behind him – Doctor in Distress – to pay off a
tax bill.
Bogarde plays
Barrett, a professional manservant whose manner is sometimes self-effacingly
blank, sometimes ingratiating, camp and cunning. He is hired as a live-in valet
by Tony (Fox), a spoilt and indolent young man on a private income who lives in
a handsome London townhouse. Barrett soon makes himself indispensable,
parasitically reducing the already lazy Tony to a state of infantilised torpor,
becoming a kind of wife to him, to the irritation of Tony’s actual fiancee
Susan (Wendy Craig). Then Barrett asks if his sister Vera (Sarah Miles) can
come as the live-in maid, and the sexy Vera entrances Tony – who gets weaker,
more reliant on drink and hopelessly submissive in the face of Barrett’s
controlling mind games.
Gay
sexuality is everywhere and nowhere in The Servant: the relationship with Vera
in fact heterosexualises an actual event in the life of Robin Maugham, author
of the original novel, when his own manservant offered to introduce him to a
teenage boy described as his “nephew”. It is a woman who seduces Tony, but it
is a man (Barrett) who pulls the strings, effecting the seduction at one
remove. Pinter’s own elliptical, disquieting dialogue is able to hint, imply,
suggest, seduce, repulse in precisely the way that gay men were forced to adopt
in 1963, when homosexuality was still a criminal offence. The Servant is like a
nightmarish version of PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster: the benign, discreet
and all-knowing servant effectively controlling everything in the life of the
feather-headed young man who is notionally in charge. In The Servant, they are
more like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or maybe Edward II and Gaveston in Christopher
Marlowe’s play.
In the end,
servant and master are bound by the hideous intimacy of shame; this is what
brings them together in their dance of psychological death. Tony is ashamed of
having fraternised with the servant, and Barrett – however gleeful he might
secretly be at the success of his strategies – is finally ashamed of having
been trifled with by the master. Losey’s film was a brilliant attack on the
British class system, which showed every sign of continuing on into the
swinging 60s era.
And my own
view is that Losey was electrified by this material because Barrett is not
simply a parasite, a predator and a sociopath, but also a parodic
fifth-columnist: the enemy within. The red-baiters, the people who had
effectively driven Losey out of the United States, were obsessed with the
threat of these people: insinuating themselves allegedly into every institution
in the country, especially Hollywood, with their agreeable and plausible
liberalism, but their gradual communistic influence was undermining the nation,
undermining its patriotic resolve and leaving it vulnerable to attack. Losey
made a brilliant and counterintuitive imaginative leap, dramatising this
paranoia and bringing it to monstrous life. It is one of Bogarde’s greatest
performances.
The Servant is released on 10 September in
cinemas and on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital platforms on 20 September.
Sunday 26 September 2021
Linda Evangelista 'permanently deformed' after cosmetic procedure, she says on Instagram |
Linda Evangelista says she was left 'deformed' by
cosmetic procedure
Published21
hours ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58662756
Supermodel
Linda Evangelista has said she has been left "permanently deformed"
due to an adverse reaction to a fat reduction procedure.
The 56-year-old
revealed she had experienced a rare cosmetic side effect of the treatment five
years ago which actually increased her fat cells.
"I
have been left, as the media has described, 'unrecognisable'," she told
her 900,000 Instagram followers.
Evangelista
explained it was the reason she'd disappeared from the public eye.
The
Canadian model went on to say she had undergone "two painful, unsuccessful,
corrective surgeries" after the slimming procedure - also known as body
contouring - had had the opposite effect.
"To my
followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers' careers
have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by... [a
procedure] which did the opposite of what it promised," Evangelista
explained.
She said
the side effect she experienced "has not only destroyed my livelihood, it
has sent me into a cycle of deep depression, profound sadness and the lowest
depths of self-loathing. In the process I have become a recluse."
In her
social media post, the star said she wanted to tell her story publicly in order
to move on with her life, and suggested she would be suing the company she said
was responsible.
The company
which Evangelista claims to have used has not yet responded to the BBC's
request for comment.
"I'm
so tired of living this way," she continued. "I would like to walk
out my door with my head held high, despite not looking like myself any longer."
The
non-surgical procedure, which has grown in popularity in recent years, uses
cold temperatures to reduce fat deposits in certain areas of the body.
Describing
the "very rare but serious side effect" she had experienced,
Evangelista said it "means the fat cells in the treatment site grow larger
rather than smaller", adding: "It's not fully understood why this
occurs."
Evangelista
rose to fame in the 1990s as one of a group of emerging supermodels, gracing
high-end catwalks around the world and the cover of leading fashion magazine
Vogue.
She also
appeared in a George Michael music video alongside Naomi Campbell, Cindy
Crawford and Christy Turlington.
The model
has kept a low profile in recent years, rarely posting new images of herself on
social media.
In the few
pictures she has posted, her face is often partially obscured by a headscarf or
hat.
Stars
including Gwyneth Paltrow and stylist Karla Welch showed their support in the
comments underneath Evangelista's post, as did designers Jeremy Scott and
Brandon Maxwell.
"You
are and always will be a supermodel, now adding super role model of courage to
your glorious resume," wrote Scott, while Paltrow posted a red love heart
emoji.
Maxwell
posted: "I have always recognised you as someone who was physically
beautiful, yes, but more importantly you really shone bright from within... In
your darkest moments may you never forget the light you have sparked in so
many, and continue to."
Fellow
model Karen Elson said: "Sweet Linda. I love you dearly, you are so brave
and wonderful."
Supermodel Linda Evangelista Says Cosmetic
Procedure Left Her ‘Disfigured’
The ’90s-era supermodel said side effects from a
fat-freezing procedure caused her to become depressed and turned her into a
recluse after “not looking like myself any longer.”
Christine
Hauser
By
Christine Hauser
Published
Sept. 23, 2021
Updated
Sept. 24, 2021
Linda
Evangelista, the supermodel made famous in the 1990s, said she had become
“brutally disfigured” and “unrecognizable” after a cosmetic body-sculpting
procedure that had turned her into a recluse.
In an
Instagram post on Wednesday, she referred to filing a lawsuit, saying that she
was taking “a big step towards righting a wrong that I have suffered and have
kept to myself for over five years.”
She added:
“To my followers who have wondered why I have not been working while my peers’
careers have been thriving, the reason is that I was brutally disfigured by
Zeltiq’s CoolSculpting procedure which did the opposite of what it promised.”
Ms.
Evangelista, 56, said that after the fat-freezing procedure she developed
paradoxical adipose hyperplasia, a side effect in which patients develop firm
tissue masses in the treatment areas.
She said
the cosmetic procedure left her “permanently deformed even after undergoing two
painful, unsuccessful, corrective surgeries.” She said she had not been told of
the risk.
“PAH has
not only destroyed my livelihood, it has sent me into a cycle of deep
depression, profound sadness, and the lowest depths of self-loathing,” she
wrote. “In the process, I have become a recluse.”
Ms.
Evangelista, who was known as one of the five top supermodels in the 1990s,
detailed her story on Instagram, where she has 912,000 followers and where
thousands of people commented or expressed support. Her story was also widely
covered in international and national media outlets.
Ms.
Evangelista filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc., in the
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The suit said she
was seeking compensatory damages of $50 million for her distress and loss of
work, promotions and public appearances.
Representatives
for the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on
Thursday. A lawyer for Ms. Evangelista was not immediately available for
comment.
The lawsuit
said Ms. Evangelista had seven treatments from August 2015 through February
2016 to break down fat cells in her abdomen, flanks, back and bra area, inner
thighs, and chin. Within a few months, she developed “hard, bulging, painful
masses under her skin in those areas,” it said, and was given a diagnosis of
PAH in June 2016.
The filing
said her quality of life, her career and her body “were all ruined in 2016
after she was permanently disfigured” by the procedure and the multiple
attempts at corrective surgery that followed.
“Ms. Evangelista
enjoyed a wildly successful and lucrative modeling career from 1984 through
2016, until she was permanently injured and disfigured by Zeltiq’s
CoolSculpting System,” the lawsuit said.
The suit
accused the company of having “intentionally concealed” the risks or “failed to
adequately warn” about them, and said Ms. Evangelista developed depression and
a fear of going outside.
Ms.
Evangelista had full body liposuctions after the diagnosis by a doctor referred
to her by Zeltiq in 2016 and 2017, but the procedures were unsuccessful and
resulted in scarring, the lawsuit said.
“Ms.
Evangelista was promised a more contoured appearance; instead, the target fat
cells actually increased in number and size and formed hard, bulging masses
under her skin,” it said.
According
to CoolSculpting, its procedure has been cleared by the Food and Drug
Administration for the treatment of visible fat bulges.
In response
to questions, the F.D.A. said in an email that it could not comment on
litigation, but that it was “committed to ensuring medical devices are safe and
effective and that patients can be fully informed when making personal health
decisions.” It said that it monitors reports from consumers of adverse events
after a device reaches the market and would “take action where appropriate.”
Cryolipolysis,
the name of the nonsurgical fat-freezing procedure, uses cold temperature to
break down fat cells, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
It is
mostly used by patients who want to reduce a specific fat bulge that they have
been unable to diminish through other means. Generally, the area of concern is
“vacuumed” into the hollow of an applicator, where it is subjected to cold
temperature.
The
surgeons’ society said the complication rate was low, with less than 1 percent
of patients who may develop paradoxical fat hyperplasia, which is an unexpected
increase in the number of fat cells. The side effect is more common in men than
in women, the society said.
Ms.
Evangelista also said that the public scrutiny of her appearance had harmed her
emotionally. “I have been left, as the media has described, ‘unrecognizable,’”
she said.
Jonah E.
Bromwich contributed reporting.
Christine
Hauser is a reporter, covering national and foreign news. Her previous jobs in
the newsroom include stints in Business covering financial markets and on the
Metro desk in the police bureau. @ChristineNYT
Saturday 25 September 2021
Friday 24 September 2021
Simon Elwes, painter
Elwes was born on 29 June 1902 at Hothorpe Hall in
Northamptonshire (also near Theddingworth, Leicestershire), the sixth and
youngest son (two daughters were born later) of famed tenor Gervase Cary Elwes
(1866–1921), and his wife, Lady Winifride Mary Elizabeth Feilding, daughter of
the 8th Earl of Denbigh. He was the scion of the recusant Cary-Elwes family, of
which many branches are known simply as "Elwes", which includes noted
British monks and bishops, such as Abbott Columba Cary-Elwes, Archbishop Dudley
Cary-Elwes and Father Luke Cary-Elwes.[citation needed] His niece, Polly Elwes,
was a famous television personality in Britain. His grandson is the prominent
English actor Cary Elwes.
Elwes' mother was so determined to have a painter in
the family she studied art and herself started painting while pregnant. For his
education Elwes first attended two Catholic schools, Ladycross School in
Seaford, and the Oratory School in Edgbaston. In 1918, at the age of sixteen,
he was taken out of the Oratory and installed in the Slade School of Fine Art
where Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer taught. After the Slade Elwes spent
eight years in Paris, first at the Académie Delécluse and then at the Academie des Beaux Arts. While
there he met a Belgian refugee, Mme. La Forge, who aroused his latent interest
in painting. Mme. La Forge gave him the run of her studio and encouraged him to
start again where he had left off. In 1920, Elwes began studying in earnest at
Andre Lhote's Academy in Montparnasse, Paris. Fellow students included Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Conrad O'Brien-ffrench and Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson. While in Paris Elwes did
a black and white drawing of the Irish tenor and recording artist, John
McCormack. McCormack would say to his wife of Elwes: "This lad has
remarkable talent and will do big things, mark my words." From France
Elwes visited art galleries in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. In 1922,
Elwes sailed to New York, having borrowed the fare. He repaid the loan by doing
charcoal drawings at $5 to $20 apiece. During this visit he managed to draw
President Harding from life. In 1926, he returned to England and on 25 November
married the Hon. Gloria Elinor Rodd (born 1901), the daughter of the diplomat
and scholar, Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell.
After his return from New York a period of
undistinguished hard work followed until his portrait of Mrs. James Montgomery
Beck Jr. (née Mary Ridgely Carter) was hung at the Royal Academy of Arts in
1930. A flood of orders followed the next day and continued to do so. The
following year Elwes showed another portrait at the Academy of Lady Lettice
Lygon, the first of many aristocratic sitters that would include many of
Britain's royal family. Thereafter, his portraits hung in the summer exhibition
of the Royal Academy every year. From London's Mayfair to Manhattan's Park
Avenue Elwes soon began to establish himself as a stylish, sought-after
portraitist. In 1929, Elwes was created a Knight of Malta and four years later
was elected a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. In 1930, Elwes
was invited to paint Robert Baden-Powell founder of the Scout movement. When
asked by the artist in a letter how he would like to pose for this,
Baden-Powell replied:
My suggestion that I should be 'doing something' when
sitting to you has a twofold meaning underlying it. One (entirely selfish) is
that it is difficult for me to sit still and do nothing when I have so much on
hand to do. Secondly, I (in common with many others) feel that (though it is
very usual with portraits) to hand down to one's successors the representation
of a man staring vacantly into space with hands lying idle, does not give a
true picture of an active worker.
That same year he painted a portrait of the Hon. Lady
Aitken. A year later his portrait of the Hon. Mrs. Roger Chetwode was one of
nine portraits chosen to be exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters
45th Annual Show. In 1936, Elwes was commissioned to paint the then Duke of
York, in uniform as colonel-in-chief of the 11th Hussars. That December he was
commissioned by the new King to paint himself and the Queen, of whom Elwes
said, "No couple ever was more popular in England, even before this
happened". Two years later he was commissioned to paint another royal
portrait of Queen Mary.[12] In December 1938, an exhibition of his work was
held at the M. Knoedler & Co. Gallery at 14 East 57th Street in Manhattan
which included that portrait.[13]
Second World War
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Elwes
initially joined the Welsh Guards. He was later transferred to the 10th Royal
Hussars and was stationed in North Africa and Egypt serving as a lieutenant
colonel. After fighting in the battles of Benghazi, Mersa Matruh and
Knightsbridge, he was made an official war artist by the local army command.
His role as a war artist was recognized when the War Artists' Advisory
Committee purchased several of his works. Whilst stationed in Cairo in 1942 he
painted portraits of King Farouk, his wife Queen Farida, their daughter
Princess Ferial, and General (later Field Marshal) Sir Henry Maitland Wilson,
General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in Egypt. In South Africa, he
painted the portraits of Paul I of the Hellenes, his wife Frederica of Hanover
as well as Prime Minister J. C. Smuts and his wife. He painted two other field
marshals: Sir Claude Auchinleck and in India, Viceroy Archibald Wavell. While
there he did portraits of the Maharaja of Patiala, Lord Mountbatten, and
various Indian Army soldiers who had won the Victoria Cross, namely Naik Nand
Singh, 11th Sikh Regiment; Havildar Gaje Ghale, 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles; Company
Havildar Major Chellu Ram, 4/6 Rajputana Rifles; Major Premindra Singh Bhagat,
21st Bombay Sappers and Havildar Parkash Singh, 8th Punjab Regiment. In Delhi,
Elwes also gave art lessons sponsored by Lady Wavell (wife of the Viceroy) at
the Viceregal Palace. Other instructors included American war artist Millard
Sheets.
Stroke and Fountains Abbey
In 1945, Elwes suffered a near-fatal stroke which
paralysed the right half of his face and body, including his painting hand. He was
diagnosed with hemiplegia. Believing that he was about to die, Elwes received
the last sacraments. He spent two years in hospital recuperating and, after
receiving treatment from renowned physiotherapist Berta Bobath, was soon able
to stand with the aid of a cane. During his recovery, Elwes stated that he
repeatedly dreamed of the ruins of Fountains Abbey which he had visited in
1933. In the dream he saw the abbey restored and himself talking with one of
the monks who kept saying: "It was built for God; it must be returned to
God." Elwes became convinced that God had ruined him physically because he
had wasted his talent and that he had been chosen to restore the abbey and
rededicate it as a monastery. Although he never accomplished his dream, Elwes enlisted
the aid of the Duke of Norfolk, Cardinal Spellman; the Marchioness of Lothian;
novelist Evelyn Waugh; Lord Lovat and many of Britain's leading Roman Catholic
laymen.
Later years
He never regained the use of his right hand, but
taught himself to paint with his left surmounting his disability enough to
become president of the Guild of Catholic Artists, and vice-president of the
Royal Society of Portrait Painters from 1953 to 1957. In 1947, he visited
Hollywood and painted a number of movie stars including Gloria Swanson and Bert
Lahr. He had become enough of a celebrity himself that in 1949, whilst
bedridden in the South of France after suffering a stroke, former British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill told Lord Beaverbrook:
I think I shall stay here for four or five days. Then
... I would like to paint with Simon Elwes.
In 1953, Elwes was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth,
the Queen Mother, to paint the 1948 investiture of her daughter, then Princess
Elizabeth with the Order of the Garter by her father King George VI. The next
year he would paint a full-length portrait of the Queen, which remains part of
the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. In 1956, Elwes was appointed an
associate of the Royal Academy. Besides the Queen he painted King George VI,
Princess Margaret and the Duchess of Kent and by 1960, had painted every member
of the Royal Family except the Duke of Windsor. ] Elwes also received a large
commission by Viscount Camrose to do a conversation piece of leading members of
White's club, of which he was a member. The sitters were Lord Birkenhead,
Douglas Fairbanks Jr., David Stirling, Evelyn Waugh and the Duke of Devonshire
set in the coffee room of the club. In 1960, Elwes joined an exhibition of
other portraitists at the Portraits, Inc. gallery on West 51st St. in
Manhattan.
In 1963, he held an exhibition of his work at the Palm
Beach Galleries which included portraits of the Hon. John Hay Whitney, (a
former ambassador to the Court of St. James's), Eleanor Robson Belmont, Madame
Alain Bertrand, Mr. & Mrs. John S. Borden, Mrs. Henry Pomeroy Davison,
William Cox Wright and Randolph Churchill.
In 1967, Elwes was made a full member of the Royal
Academy. One observer, who witnessed him there in his later years, recalls him
as being: "Handsome, fresh of complexion, finely dressed, with a scarlet
flower in his buttonhole, he enriched the proceedings with his smile, no less
than with his air of being a visitor from a world more carefree and elegant
than the one in which deficits and disappointments were certain to be
discussed." Many of Elwes' paintings can be found in museums, palaces and
academies around the world. Some of his early sketches form part of Mark
Birley's private collection at Annabel's nightclub in Berkeley Square.
In the last months of his life, he had to be pushed
about in a wheelchair, hardly able to speak. Even though his face had grown
thinner and paler, had a look of the greatest nobility. Elwes died on 6 August
1975, in Amberley, West Sussex. He and his wife Gloria had four sons, Peter,
father of painter Luke Elwes, Giles, who died in infancy, Tim and Dominick, who
died one month after his father. His wife died in October of that year.
Wednesday 22 September 2021
Condé Nast today named Hamish Bowles as the new editor
in chief at The World of Interiors. Bowles brings with him over 25 years of
experience at American Vogue on the senior editorial team, where he is
currently global editor at large overseeing all house and garden features,
contributing profiles of cultural figures, as well as reporting on the history
of fashion and style.
In his expanded role, Bowles will lead The World of
Interiors’ editorial team into a new era that honours the magazine’s timeless
heritage while expanding its influence and reach to audiences across digital
and video. Bowles will succeed Rupert Thomas, after 22 successful years at the
helm, and will be only the third editor in chief in the magazine’s 40 year
history. The World of Interiors was founded in 1981 by Min Hogg from her flat
on the Fulham Road and quickly became known for celebrating the unique and the
unusual. It was acquired by Condé Nast in 1982 and is today appreciated by
lovers of art, culture and style worldwide. The magazine has an iconic status,
acknowledged as the ultimate authority on design bringing together exceptional
interiors and decorative arts.
Photography:
Simon Upton.
Tuesday 21 September 2021
LuLaRich - Official Trailer | Prime Video / ‘It’s very culty’: the bizarre billion-dollar downfall of fashion company LuLaRoe
‘It’s very culty’: the bizarre billion-dollar
downfall of fashion company LuLaRoe
LuLaRich, the Amazon docuseries on a multi-level
marketing company, is a four-part dive into greed and faux-girlboss ideals
Adrian
Horton
@adrian_horton
Wed 15 Sep
2021 20.37 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/15/lularich-lularoe-amazon-docuseries
Roberta
Blevins first heard about the leggings in the fall of 2015, in a post by a
fellow member of a motherhood-themed Facebook group. They were loudly
patterned, buttery soft, interesting – clothing functional for chasing around
young children, accommodating of changing bodies post-birth, and cute enough to
be socially acceptable outside the home. The woman who advertised the leggings
said she bought them wholesale from a company called LuLaRoe, and sold them for
double the price.
Blevins was
intrigued. She was struggling with the alienation of young motherhood and
looking to supplement her family’s income, and LuLaRoe offered an alluring,
soothing promise: sign up to be a retailer, and you could run a successful virtual
boutique out of your home while still being present for your kids.
LuLaRoe
seemed to offer “this built-in community, where I knew I could have an instant
friendship”, she told the Guardian. As Blevins recalls in LuLaRich, a four-part
Amazon docuseries on the beleaguered multi-level marketing company, LuLaRoe
women added her to Facebook groups, texted her, invited her to parties that
doubled as fashion sales, and showered her with encouragement. By March 2016,
Blevins paid $9,000 to become a LuLaRoe consultant and receive a starter
package of clothing to sell.
At first,
things went well – she was enthusiastic about the clothing, and made money
selling LuLaRoe on Facebook out of her home in suburban San Diego, California.
But Blevins quickly felt the strain of the company’s precipitous growth, owing
to its emphasis on recruiting new “consultants” – people on the “downline”
whose start-up costs traveled up the ranks as “bonus checks”. By the end of
2016, what had started in 2012 as a homespun business selling maxi skirts out
of the trunk of a car by two Mormon grandmothers had reached over $1.3bn in
sales with over 60,000 consultants – and faced lawsuits alleging that LuLaRoe
founders Mark and DeAnne Stidham misled retailers and ran a pyramid scheme.
Over four
episodes, LuLaRich, directed by Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason (makers
of Hulu’s Fyre, on the spectacular meltdown of the scammy music festival),
surveys the warp speed growth of a company that preyed on millennial,
overwhelmingly white women’s sense of purposelessness, repackaged the fallacy
of “having it all”, and saddled thousands in debt and broken promises while the
company’s top brass raked in millions. The company appealed, said Furst, to the
“middle America millennials who don’t have the same opportunities that their
parents had, who are facing a lot of different struggles, who are susceptible
on one hand to the patriarchal nuclear family structure but then also the pitch
to be a girlboss and to be empowered and to be a feminist who is selling these
leggings”.
Blevins,
like several of the former LuLaRoe consultants who appear in the series, was at
first convinced by the promise of running her own business. The company
hammered home the perks of being not just a LuLaRoe retailer, but a member of a
movement – a “boss babe”, “part-time work for full time pay”, contributing to
household income without going to an office. Or, as Mark puts it to Nason and
Furst in the first episode: “Take your creativity, your passion, your
excitement for life, and here’s a place that’s a pure meritocracy.”
“They saw
me, they’re like she’s bubbly, she’s energetic, she knows how to use social
media, she’s an asset to moving this forward,” Blevins said of the “love-bombing”
grooming process that convinced her to join LuLaRoe. “At that point, I was just
another walking dollar sign.”
Slowly,
inconsistencies began to pile up. Blevins would visit “home office” in Corona,
California, or attend company events, which increasingly took on the feel of
pop religious festivals (corporate events included performances by Kelly
Clarkson and Katy Perry), and Mark would start reciting passages from the book
of Mormon. “I thought we were selling leggings?” Blevins recalled thinking. “It
just seemed strange.” Blevins received an order of merchandise that reeked of
mold; quality was slipping, and some leggings straight-up poorly designed, with
prints that resembled anatomy at the crotch. Now with several consultants
down-line of her, Blevins passed questions up the chain, “and they would give
me an answer that made sense,” she said.
“You reach
up inside the organization [for answers]. You don’t reach outside the
organization for information or to have your questions answered. It’s very
culty.”
Through
interviews with former and current consultants, employees, and even Mark and
DeAnne themselves, LuLaRich takes a bird’s eye view to what Blevins couldn’t
see at the time: the company, allegedly designed to make money not on clothing
but through the unsustainable recruitment of new members, was collapsing under
its own weight. Mark and DeAnne, who married in 1998, trademarked LuLaRoe in
2013, and staffed it with members of their large extended family. In 14 months
from 2015 to 2016, the company grew from $70m in sales to over a billion. The
profits for those who joined early in the company, and whose down lines
flowered into the thousands, were astounding: some in the series claim to have
received bonus checks of anywhere from $20,000 to $70,000 a month.
Meanwhile,
the majority of LuLaRoe consultants struggled to make ends meet – encouraged to
take on debt and saddled with merchandise they couldn’t sell. With a glut on
the market of LuLaRoe consultants, most buckled under the weight. “A lot of
people lost their marriages, their lives were in shambles, people were selling
breast milk for startup costs – are you kidding me?” LaShae Kimbrough Benson,
who started as an administrative assistant at the company’s headquarters in
2015, told the Guardian. “People were taking out loans, all kind of stuff. And
[Mark and DeAnne] knew that.”
The
lopsided margins were by design of multi-level marketing companies –
essentially, pyramid schemes legal under the guise that they’re selling a
product rather than membership – according to experts featured in the series
such as Robert FitzPatrick, author of Ponzinomics: The Untold Story of
Multi-Level Marketing. Legal MLMs have to have a buyback policy, and prohibit
buying new inventory until retailers have sold 70% and have at least 10 new
customers. As Benson and other former employees recall, LuLaRoe more than
skirted this line. “We always had a quota to hit,” said Benson, who eventually
worked for the “onboarding” team for new members.
The
Stidhams maintain that LuLaRoe, which is still in business (though startup
costs are down 90% and the commission structure altered), was never a scam, but
a meritocratic ladder reflective of personal effort and character. The couple
participated in an initial interview with the film-makers to detail the origin
story behind the company and their values of entrepreneurism while maintaining
a traditional family structure; they declined a second interview to
specifically address claims made against the company in 50 lawsuits filed since
2016, as well as some of the more outrageous elements of corporate culture –
that they pressured consultants to get weight-loss surgery in Tijuana and
received kickbacks from the doctor, for example.
The company
instead offered a statement presented at the end of the series: “We continue to
bring greater focus to our mission of improving lives and strengthening
families through the principles of entrepreneurism while continuing to educate
small business owners about the opportunities found in personal responsibility
and individual choice.”
“It’s that
dual-edged sword of personal responsibility,” said Furst of the statement.
“That’s what the MLMs feed off of in the first place: if you’re a failure, it’s
your fault.”
Blevins
felt the stigma as she began to lose faith in the company over the course of
2017. The last straw was joining a Facebook support group for ex-LuLaRoe
consultants and “having every little thing that I had ever complained about,
any question I had, all answered”, she said. She read through the posts and
cried.
“There’s a
process of grief that you go through when you leave an MLM,” said Blevins, who
left LuLaRoe in September 2017 and now advocates against MLMs through her own
podcast. “There was a lot of ex-communication, a lot of harassment, a lot of
people telling me I was crazy, or saying ‘You’re going to ruin your life by
leaving.’”
The
internal pressure to stay quiet and avoid “negativity” was something that
dogged many women who participated in the series, according to co-director
Julia Willoughby Nason. “There was just tons of the behind the scenes peer
pressure and bullying, and blowback that these women had already experienced,
and I think that they were very scared of the repercussions if they were going
to have a platform like a multi-part docu-series,” she said.
In
February, LuLaRoe agreed to pay $4.75m to the state of Washington to settle a
2019 consumer protection lawsuit alleging the company operated a pyramid scheme
that made “unfair and deceptive misrepresentations regarding the profitability”
of being a retailer. Through its collation of first-person testimony, LuLaRich
offers an “invitation, tacitly, to attorney generals around the country to do
what Washington did, protect their consumers” said Furst. In the meantime, the
company still promises a “community of lasting love and fellowship” on a
website that pitches “creating freedom through fashion” over a single button:
“Join LuLaRoe.”
LuLaRich is
now available on Amazon Prime
Monday 20 September 2021
Prince Charles ‘cash-for-honours’ scandal grows with fresh allegations / Charles and the Chinese donor who's a wanted man in Taiwan: So did the Prince know of the allegations when Foundation accepted tycoon's cash?
Prince Charles ‘cash-for-honours’ scandal grows
with fresh allegations
Prince reportedly ‘met at least nine times’ with
William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at heart of the claims
Prince Charles reportedly met with Bortrick in
England, Scotland and Saudi Arabia over the past seven years.
Jamie
Grierson
@JamieGrierson
Sun 19 Sep
2021 18.05 BST
Clarence
House is facing fresh questions over further revelations in the royal “cash for
honours” scandal involving middlemen who reportedly took cuts for setting up
meetings between wealthy donors and the Prince of Wales.
Prince
Charles “met at least nine times” with William Bortrick, the alleged fixer at
the heart of the claims, who is said to have received thousands of pounds to
secure an honour for a Saudi billionaire and brokered a personal thank-you
letter from Charles to a Russian donor, the Sunday Times reported.
Clarence
House has previously said it had “no knowledge” of the practice of paid
intermediaries arranging access to the royal family or honours in exchange for
donations to the Prince’s charities.
Meanwhile,
the Mail on Sunday reports that Charles met with Bruno Wang, who describes
himself as a Chinese philanthropist and donated £500,000 to the prince’s
charity, the Prince’s Foundation.
The
newspaper claimed that Wang is wanted in Taiwan for alleged money laundering
and being a fugitive from justice, allegations he strongly denies, and draws
comparisons between Wang and the Russian banker Dmitry Leus.
Leus was
likewise accused of money laundering and made a donation of £500,000 to the
foundation. Leus’s conviction was overturned.
The Russian
banker reportedly received two invitations to private events at Charles’s royal
residences in Scotland, allegedly secured by Bortrick. They were both cancelled
because of the pandemic and concerns about the donor’s past.
The
allegations have prompted an investigation at the Prince’s Foundation which has
led to Michael Fawcett temporarily stepping down as chief executive. Fawcett
said he fully supports the investigation. Douglas Connell, the chairman of the
Prince’s Foundation, also resigned, citing evidence of possible “rogue
activity” and “serious misconduct” of which he had “no knowledge”.
The Sunday
Times reported that Charles met with Bortrick in England, Scotland and Saudi
Arabia over the past seven years. Bortrick attended donor dinners hosted by Charles
at Dumfries House, the royal residence in Ayrshire; saw the prince in London at
Clarence House, St James’s Palace and Buckingham Palace; and met the prince
over tea and sandwiches at the British embassy in Riyadh.
In summer
2020, Charles, 72, and Bortrick, 48, met at the Castle of Mey, the late Queen
Mother’s former home in Caithness, the newspaper reported.
Weeks
before this meeting, the paper claims Bortrick had brokered a six-figure
donation to the charity from Leus in exchange for a meeting with the prince. He
received a £5,000 (€5,860) cut of the donation for “expenses”.
On 5
August, shortly after the meeting, Bortrick wrote to the Russian: “I have just
had an excellent private visit with HRH the Prince of Wales who appreciates
your generosity and asked me to send his personal good wishes to you.”
The
Prince’s Foundation declined to comment on either articles when approached for
comment.
A
spokesperson for Clarence House told the Guardian: “The Prince of Wales has no
knowledge of the alleged offer of honours or British citizenship on the basis
of donation to his charities and fully supports the independent investigation
now underway by The Prince’s Foundation.”
Bortrick is
the editor and owner of Burke’s Peerage, a genealogical publication that
chronicles the aristocracy. He has used the publishing company behind it to
receive payments for consultancy services to ultra-wealthy individuals seeking
access to the British establishment.
The
Guardian attempted to contact Bortrick through Burke’s Peerage. A spokesperson
for Bortrick told the Sunday Times: “Mr Bortrick is a proud supporter of the
Prince’s Foundation. In his dedication to the foundation, Mr Bortrick has
introduced a number of potential benefactors to the Prince’s Foundation.”
They said
he had met the prince only “in a group setting and never in private”.
Bruno Wang,
who lives in the Cayman Islands, is being pursued in Taiwan for the millions
made in a 30-year-old warships deal overseen by his now deceased father, Andrew
Wang.
A
spokesperson for Wang said Bruno was never involved in the original
transaction.
He said:
“These 30-year-old accusations in Taiwan against his deceased father are
politically motivated and without foundation. When they were made about his
father before the Cayman court in 2014, the Honourable Chief Justice, Anthony
Smellie dismissed them as not only ‘wholly unintelligible’ but ‘scandalous and
vexatious’.”
He added:
“Bruno is committed to supporting charitable endeavours that promote art,
wellness and social inclusion.”
Charles and the Chinese donor who's a wanted man
in Taiwan: So did the Prince know of the allegations when Foundation accepted
tycoon's cash?
Bruno Wang posed for a photograph with Prince Charles
in January 2019
It was taken at the opening of a health and wellness
centre at Dumfries House
Plaque says centre was 'made possible by the
generosity' of Wang's foundation
By IAN
GALLAGHER and JONATHAN BUCKS and KATE MANSEY FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED:
22:35 BST, 18 September 2021 | UPDATED: 01:19 BST, 19 September 2021
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10005017/Charles-Chinese-donor-whos-wanted-man-Taiwan.html
A a deeply
private – some might even say mysterious – individual, Bruno Wang rarely courts
publicity.
Still, he
was willing to pose for `a photograph with Prince Charles in January 2019 at
the opening of a health and wellness centre at Dumfries House, part of the
Prince's charitable foundation.
Behind
them, a plaque unveiled moments earlier by the Prince prominently records that
the centre was 'made possible by the generosity' of Mr Wang's foundation.
What a
contrast between this cheery image and another of 54-year-old Mr Wang which
now, as then, features on the Taiwanese government's Ministry of Justice
website.
Alongside
an appeal for information, Mr Wang's face looms from what is effectively a
wanted poster accusing him of money laundering and being a fugitive from
justice.
Though he
vehemently denies the allegations, and indeed denies any wrongdoing, Mr Wang –
who describes himself as a 'Chinese philanthropist' – is only too aware that
should he set foot on the island, he would be arrested and put on trial.
Whether
this uncomfortable fact is known to Charles and his advisers is unclear, but it
is perhaps worth drawing a comparison between Mr Wang's donation and one from
Russian banker Dmitry Leus, highlighted last week by The Mail on Sunday in our
'cash for access' revelations that have prompted an investigation at The
Prince's Foundation which has led to Michael Fawcett temporarily stepping down
as chief executive. Mr Fawcett says he fully supports the ongoing
investigation.
Mr Leus
gave £500,000 to the foundation last year only to later learn that its ethics
committee had rejected it, apparently because it did not consider the gift
appropriate.
Like Mr
Wang, Mr Leus was accused of money laundering in his homeland, but the
Russian's conviction was overturned and he was exonerated. Little wonder
perhaps that Mr Leus now feels aggrieved, especially as he hasn't had his money
back.
Some might
forgive him for wondering why Mr Wang (who, it must be said, was not seeking an
honour of any kind in return for his donation) escaped similar treatment.
Mr Wang
would argue that he is innocent, stands no chance of a fair trial in his
homeland and he, too, is a victim of a vexatious prosecution.
It stems
from one of France's biggest political and financial scandals of modern times,
which left a trail of unexplained deaths, nearly half a billion dollars in
missing cash and troubling allegations of government complicity.
The scandal
centred on a £2 billion arms deal between France and Taiwan, signed in 1991.
France agreed to supply Taiwan's navy with six frigates, a deal which Mr Wang's
arms-dealer father, Andrew Wang, helped broker.
It was
beset by allegations of bribery, with Andrew Wang said to have received
millions in kickbacks – claims he always denied. His son was said to have
provided 'assistance to [his father] to secure bribes' – which he adamantly
denies.
Andrew Wang
left Taiwan in 1993 and never returned. It was said that he disappeared before
he was due to be questioned about the murder of a navy captain who was about to
blow the whistle on the kickbacks. Wang Snr, who died in 2015, accused the
Taiwanese of adding the murder allegation only to improve the chances of his
extradition.
At some
point, the rest of his family – his wife and Bruno and his three siblings –
also moved abroad, settling in England.
Taiwan
issued an international warrant for Andrew Wang's arrest, alleging murder,
corruption and breaking defence secrecy laws. Investigators in France and
Switzerland looked into at least some aspects of the transactions. In 2001, a
BBC report said the Swiss authorities 'have now blocked several accounts of Mr
Wang and his family both in Switzerland and in Luxembourg'.
At the same
time, Swiss newspaper Le Temps said the authorities were alerted to the
accounts after a bank official in Zurich became suspicious that Mr Wang's wife
and Bruno were moving documents and millions of dollars into several different
accounts across Switzerland. According to legal documents in the Cayman
Islands, where Bruno now lives, his father once said he could never return to Taiwan
because of 'a sustained media campaign for over 20 years'.
He added:
'I cannot imagine that I or my family can face a fair trial in Taiwan… [after]
my image has been completely demonised by the public statements made about my
role in obtaining the [defence] contract.'
His case
was that all the money he received was legally paid to him. In 2014, a court in
the Cayman Islands dismissed all of the allegations made against him and
described the Taiwanese claim as 'wholly unintelligible' and based on allegations
which were 'hopelessly general and vague'.
But even
after Andrew Wang died in London, aged 86, prosecutors in Taiwan continued
their pursuit of the millions from the warships deal, claiming Bruno and his
family were still 'at large'. In October 2019, the Taiwanese Supreme Court
ruled that Andrew Wang's widow and children were 'innocent third parties' who
could 'not rightly be considered to be co-offenders and who could not be
charged with any criminal offence'.
Last month,
however, the Taipei Times, an English-language newspaper in Taiwan, reported
that a request had been granted to seize more than £300 million in funds held
by the Wang family in Swiss bank accounts. Sources close to the family say the
vast majority of these funds have been released.
Despite the
vociferous claims of innocence, the allegations hung over the Wangs, including
Bruno, for two decades.
Dividing
his time between London and the Cayman Islands, Bruno describes himself as a
'philanthropist, patron of culture and businessman'. His website also describes
him as a 'dedicated practitioner of energy healing and mindfulness' who
established the Pureland Foundation – which supported Charles's wellness centre
– 'to support social, spiritual and emotional wellness and enrich lives through
art and music'.
Moving in
exalted social circles, and often accompanied by his sister, Rebecca, who has
been described as a friend of the Prince of Wales, Bruno has attended events
held by Charles's charitable organisation, the Prince's Trust.
On one
occasion, he was pictured with Prince Edward. In addition to his charitable
ventures, he runs Bruno Wang Productions and has financed several
Olivier-nominated West End shows.
The
Prince's Foundation last night declined to discuss Mr Wang or his donation to
the Dumfries House Wellness Centre, which was also funded by glamorous
Taiwanese businesswoman Christine Chiu and her plastic surgeon husband Gabriel,
the stars of the Netflix series, Bling Empire.
The
Wellness Centre does not represent the first time that Charles has benefited
from Mr Wang's largesse. He also supported Children & The Arts, a charity
the Prince founded to give underprivileged children access to the arts.
The idea
came to him after he visited a school for excluded children in Balsall Heath,
Birmingham, where he saw a class studying Romeo and Juliet. Surprised that the
children had not seen the play performed, Charles invited them to see a Royal
Shakespeare Company production in Stratford.
'My hope is
that children will gain a lasting love of the arts and be confident to walk
into a gallery, museum or theatre and know it's somewhere they belong,' he
said.
But as
laudable as Charles's project was, it has since become drawn into the 'cash for
access' scandal threatening to tarnish his good work.
In 2017,
Hussam Otaibi, a Jordanian merchant banker and a generous financial backer of
Children & The Arts, was appointed its chairman and brought with him
several key employees of his investment fund Floreat.
An art
lover, Mr Otaibi arranged auctions of works by prominent artists, including
Tracey Emin, to raise money for the charity.
According
to Floreat's website, where it describes itself as 'long-term supporters of the
charity', it has raised £240,000 for Children & The Arts by hosting
contemporary art auctions.
By 2019,
however, the charity found itself in financial trouble. According to one
source, donors dried up after Prince Philip stepped back from public life and
Charles was required to take on more duties. 'Once Charles stopped being so
involved with the charity, we struggled to attract the big donors,' the source
said.
Another
source said: 'There was a feeling that you had to say to the charities, 'Well,
you'll have to learn to stand on your own two feet because the Prince is going
to be King one day and he won't be there to help in the same way.' '
Children
& The Arts began the process of winding up but, for reasons that remain
unclear, required £200,000 to complete the process. Last September – at the
alleged behest of Mr Fawcett, who was for many years Charles's most trusted
executive and remains a confidante – £200,000 of Mr Leus's money was
transferred to the charity.
In its
annual report, the charity said: 'Although the charitable fundraising climate
remains highly challenging, the charity has organised itself to secure the
funds of £233,000 to settle its remaining liabilities and undertake the orderly
closure of its business activity throughout 2019/20.
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