Helen Barrett
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helenbarrett.bsky.social
Helen Barrett
@helenbarrett.bsky.social
11K followers 2.2K following 5.2K posts
Features journalist - NYTimes, Financial Times, Telegraph. On a book break, writing about the Beatles.

https://www.helenbarrettjournalist.com/

https://open.substack.com/pub/helenbarrett
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helenbarrett.bsky.social
Me reading your feature on "day-to-evening dressing for the party season".
Edwardian painting of a woman lying in bed reading.
November 24, 2025 at 2:49 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Really enjoying this. Bravo @holsmith.bsky.social for putting residents at the centre of tired debates about architectural style and dismantling received wisdom with archival evidence, especially on Ronan Point.
Book - Up in the Air. A History of High-Rise Britain by Holly Smith
November 24, 2025 at 9:07 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Winds, fires, bamboo. Obviously the metaphors are a side issue but I'm enjoying how spectacularly clunky and introduction-to-creative-writing they all are.
employer. Ms. Nuzzi moved to Los Angeles and got to work on her book, a grafting of her own crisis onto the current national maladies, one attempted in the spirit of Joan Didion, and so close to its apparent source of inspiration that the cruelties of the Santa Ana winds are invoked at least three times.
November 24, 2025 at 7:10 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
#bargegoals
David Essex in "The River" some time in the 80s.
November 23, 2025 at 5:34 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Staying on a barge. Highly recommended -- if only for the sound of rain on the roof at night.
A big Dutch barge on the River Thanes
November 23, 2025 at 5:29 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Kingston latest: Mat Collishaw's accursed AI-ish Christmas mural has gone. That was quick.
Christmas mural Christmas mural gone
November 23, 2025 at 12:36 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Marianne Faithfull's chinoiserie desk with gilt and leather detailing is up for auction with a starting bid of £10. It's crazy how little old furniture is worth, even with provenance (the desk appears in the video for "Nowness".
Elaborate early 20th century chinoiserie desk, once owned by Marianne Faithfull and coming up for auction at Bonhams.
November 23, 2025 at 9:38 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Substack this week on Wes Anderson's use of costume in film, plus a bit about the Beatles.

open.substack.com/pub/helenbar...
The delightfully reductive costumes of Wes Anderson's films Ingenue, battleaxe, put-upon spouse: the film-maker uses clothes as signifiers, as a new show at the Design Museum shows Sounds and Visions
November 21, 2025 at 9:06 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Sorry, Dwell not AD:
November 20, 2025 at 6:58 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
I thought there wasn't much more to discover about Bowie's songwriting (I'm sure others knew about this):
Peggy Sue Got Married Song by Buddy Holly Overview Lyrics Please don't tell, no, no, no Don't say that I told you so I just heard a rumor from a friend I don't say that it's true I'll just leave that up to you If you don't believe, I'll understand You recall a girl that's been in nearly every song? This is what I heard, of course, the story could be wrong Ashes to Ashes Song by David Bowie • 1980 Overview Lyrics DAVID BOWE Other recordings Do you remember a guy that's been In such an early song I've heard a rumour from Ground Control Oh no, don't say it's true They got a message from the Action Man "I'm happy, hope you're happy too I've loved all l've needed to love Sordid details following"
November 17, 2025 at 10:58 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Rachel Cooke's Observer pieces are full of effortless gags, especially when she's writing about Sheffield in the 80s. The line about footballers' wives is pure northern deadpan.
blue eyeliner. Beyond this - and to us, it was like staring out across an ocean - there were basically only two other options, both more expensive: a wine bar called Mr Kite's, where quiche was served and Phil Oakey out of the Human League had once been seen, and an American-style restaurant called Hanrahan's, where men with Buck's Fizz hairstyles and (I may have imagined this) salmon-pink ties served ridiculous cocktails to footballers (whose wives had not yet been invented), solicitors and dealers of secondhand Jaguars (ten bob millionaires, as they were known then). It was a painful year, grey and sad. But my memories of 1984 are also, at a distance, slightly comical. On our side of Sheffield, famous for its trees and big Victorian houses, solidarity with the men was outwardly sincere - until, that is, a wild rumour went round that the president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Arthur Scargill, was house-hunting in the area, at which point some people had a bad attack of the vapours. Our teachers, no strangers to strikes themselves, were totally on board, of course. Even before the miners walked out, their idea of a really good school trip was to a pit shaft - and, frankly, we agreed: the cage that took us down, our helmets and lamps at a (we fancied) fashionably jaunty angle, combined with the near-darkness below to facilitate the best flirting opportunities we'd ever had while under their supervision.
November 16, 2025 at 8:43 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
One of the most interesting and imaginative exhibitions in ages.
Portrait of Charlotte Bronte by Celia Paul, 2019 Memorable Equinox with Goya's Skull, painting by Victor Man, 2024
November 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Went to see "Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World" at the Michael Werner Gallery, curated by Hilton Als. Here's Rhys's house dress from 1914.

I now want a house dress.
Edwardian cotton house dress in floral print
November 15, 2025 at 6:11 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
So much great journalism is this. Pauline Kael never made a film, Lester Bangs never picked up a guitar. It's just endless enthusiasm.
saying: "I'm no more a food writer than an opera writer. I'm just playing the role of the enthusiastic amateur, which is what readers are."
November 14, 2025 at 9:29 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Accidental dialogue.
Two albums side by side: The McCartney Interview and Stevie Smith Reads Selected Poems. The portrait photography on each makes it look like McCartney and Smith are in dialogue.
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Also on cooling towers: if you see one of these kicking around in a charity shop or lying unwanted in a kitchen cupboard, you've struck eBay gold. Please alert me to your auction.
Promotional mugs in the shape of cooling towers produced by National Power, 1990
November 11, 2025 at 9:14 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
With essays by your fave architectural historians, incl. @hughpearman.bsky.social and
@osaumarezsmith.bsky.social
Entrance to West Burton A power station, Nottingham
November 11, 2025 at 8:39 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Just 45 cooling towers left in Britain, all but one in the process of decommission and demolition. If, like me, you are fond of these silent sculptural giants scattered across the landscape, you will love @c20society.bsky.social supersized new book.
Suitably massive book about cooling towers, published by Batsford and C20 Society Ferrybridge B power station North Yorkshire, against St Edward's Church, Brotherton, 1960
November 11, 2025 at 8:39 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Très Français.
Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux, AKA Fedora Man, holding a framed AP News photograph of police and museum goers in the aftermath of the Louvre heist. In the photo, he is among the museum goers. Caption: "I didn't want to say immediately it was me. With this photo there is a mystery, so you have to make it last." - Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux AP"
November 10, 2025 at 8:31 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
The lonely 12th-century Leper Chapel (St Mary Magdalene), with Roman foundations, near Ripon. The narrow window at standing height was for passing alms to people with leprosy.
Lone, 12th-century chapel in York stone with single bell tower. Chapel wall with narrow leaded window at standing height.
November 9, 2025 at 8:04 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
A walk around the delightful village of Masham (that's Mass-ham, *not* Mash-ham, as I was told very firmly).
The 13th-century market cross at Masham, North Yorkshire Wyvyll Monument, St Mary's, Masham, 16th-century Saxon cross, Masham church yard A rack of fleeces with illustrated wolves printed on them, for sale in Masham market.
November 8, 2025 at 6:44 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
The very wonderful, very gnomic Fiery Furnaces at the Barbican this evening, very far away.
November 6, 2025 at 9:49 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Who's creative director at Toast these days? Goody Proctor?
Woman obscured by a bunch of twigs, which is festooned with a garland of brown paper birds. Clay bauble with perforated holes, tied with string.
November 5, 2025 at 9:10 PM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Mamdani's speech is SO GOOD: respectful, generous, sparkling.
For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns: These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater. Now, I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour.
November 5, 2025 at 6:32 AM
helenbarrett.bsky.social
Laughable. Whoever heard of a journalist driving a Bentley?
He and colleagues seized Robinson's phone and asked him to provide the passcode to unlock it. But he refused, saying he was a journalist and it contained privileged material.
November 4, 2025 at 12:52 PM