Following “Cher” around Soho with a gaggle of photographers felt like the golden years of paparazzi again. The sequins, the platform-heeled strut.
Neon skyscrapers stacked on top of each other on steep terrain, and the people who came from other regions to be immersed in a likeminded community.
“A masterclass in euphoric melancholia”: Scotland’s Cureheads together under the sky for the first time since 1992.
In Argentina, where the far-right president is cracking down on protests and cutting femicide from the penal code, it’s hard to stick to a conventional runway. Feminism, wokeism and “gender ideology” are, apparently, undesirable threats on a mission to destroy the family. Javier Milei is stripping workers of rights, slashing welfare and abolishing trans employment quotas. With that backdrop, a defiant anti-fashion show in Buenos Aires found its natural setting not in the capital’s fashion week, but at the queer underground rave HiedraH. For over a decade, record label and
“Every single person plays a part in creating the atmosphere”: a woman in latex on all fours with a fruit platter on her back, at Dalston’s new human connection HQ.
What began as a rebellious “post-drug culture” magazine handed out for free to clubbers in the 1990s has spun out into a world-first Museum of Youth Culture. Sleazenation, steeped in crude irony, shaped London’s sweaty underbelly from 1993–2003. The name was pinched from a buzzword splattered across the tabloids in a country rocked by corruption and obsessed with celebrity scandals. The mag was seen as Dazed’s rival and The Face’s slutty, unshowered brother – who was no less afraid to badmouth last night’s rock gig than run a competition to
“Artists look out on a sea of smartphones instead of faces”: German club culture has been synonymous with camera bans for two decades. Now it’s taking London by storm.
DeathbyRomy and I catch up to talk about love. That, plus religion and slut-shaming. We were meant to talk in February but she lost her voice mid-tour due to singer’s nodes. “It really sucks,” she texted me from Paris. “I had a few heavy years of smoking as a teenager and it permanently altered my voice. And I taught myself screamo with no education, so I kind of fucked myself.” Romy Maxine Flores is a 26-year-old heavy pop artist born and raised in Los Angeles. Poignant whispers followed by bleeding
It’s a misconception that Arthur Samier’s work is all about models at Paris Fashion Week afterparties. Some of his rolls of film turn out star-studded, but in his eyes the subjects are anonymous lovers he encounters at night. “Whether people are known or not, models or not, is irrelevant to me,” he says. Fewer people are going to parties to find hookups. “A fear of the other has emerged,” Samier, 26, says. He likes to call those who still dare to kiss freely “les résistants de l’amour” (the resisters of
Chadd Curry, aka Dahc Dermur VIII, turned 60 at The Mandrake on Saturday. More than just a Wraith Club party for the “mother goth” of London, it was a fundraiser for his fight against cancer. London’s gothic figureheads wax rhapsodic about no one more than Chadd. By no means superficially – their eyes mist over and the praise feels spiritual. Tonight, this chosen family of outsiders are rejoicing their fairy gothmother: a performance artist, DJ, educator and fashion muse. His 24/7 aesthetic – a blend of avant-garde silhouettes and industrial
The Cold Magazine sent its Music & Nightlife Editor, Phoebe Hennell, to report on the ground from Buenos Aires Fashion Week (BAFWEEK) Autumn/Winter 2026. The collection featured brands including Kosiuko, Bullbenny, Las Pepas, Mishka and Sadaels. Argentines love to bitch about BAFWEEK. Back when it was a massive public event anyone could buy a ticket to, the fashion elite complained it wasn’t chic enough and yearned for gatekeeping. Now that it’s transitioned into a guest-listed, industry-focused event like the rest of the world, the people feel robbed. “How can I
When I told my mum about cake sitting, she thought I was writing about babysitting desserts. Not quite. Rather, it is performance art involving the destruction of a cake. It can be burlesque, drag, theatre or whatever direction the performer takes it. At the Old Nuns Head, a queer-run pub in Peckham, London that describes itself as “a home for all huns”, LGBTQIA+ people can sign up to sit on a cake in front of a cheering audience. Aptly named Cake Sit, the collective was founded by Daisy, and is
The night still belongs to lovers in London. Lakiya Butler-Kania has been documenting youth culture in the capital after sunset, particularly squat party, rave and queer scenes, for four years. In an exclusive Valentine’s photo series for Cold, she compiles moments of passion immortalised through the eye of her camera between 2023 and 2025. “People have always been my main interest, especially how we interact with each other and how the pure euphoria of music brings us together as a community,” she tells Cold. “I strive to capture this connection
“I literally do not care about the readings 90 per cent of the time”: girls in backless dresses whisking dates to candlelit poetry nights in Dalston.
Teenage siblings lift the kit onto the truck for a guerrilla gig outside a Soho record shop. A crowd amasses, and then the police show up.
“Clean living under difficult circumstances”: in Soho, where the Swinging Sixties started, dapper youths are choosing cufflinks over puffer jackets.
“They don’t let you count sheep at a penal colony,” punk collective Pussy Riot co-founder Maria “Masha” Alyokhina tells me in the backroom of a dive bar. It’s a drafty, DIY music venue with neon red lights. The floor is slippery from lager and wet boots. Photography is forbidden and not all the regulars own a passport. There are truly no airs or graces about the place. It seems inconceivable for this revolutionary – a woman famous for guerrilla gigs with names like “Putin’s Pissed Himself”, jailed for so-called hooliganism
Hotels are a peculiar alchemy of public space and private chambers. They are at once a stage to exhibit yourself and a sanctuary for temporary escape. Decorum, your past, truths and even your name can be left at the door. Identity is fluid, allowing for a semi-staged life-ette. The secrets are held only by the walls and the staff who move silently behind them. For anyone reasonably well read, Oscar Wilde is likely a touchstone of their literary life — even a single page of his writing gives you the
