A dark satire of girlboss feminism and the cult of beauty
FICTION
Rytuał
Chloe Elisabeth Wilson
Penguin, $34.99
Despite our best efforts, the pursuit of beauty for women feels like an inescapable project of distraction. Case in point: we're not entirely sure if the overpriced lash serum will deliver on its promise of longer, lusher lashes, but we hand over money anyway because, well, we want to be beautiful.
We crave the power that beauty holds. We're comfortably deluded in contributing to the global industry that's worth $650 billion a year.
Being beautiful is a reliable religion. Or rather, wanting to be included in the exclusive club of Beautiful Women can feel like an ungovernable lust. In Chloe Elisabeth Wilson's debut novel, Rytuał, a dark, suspenseful yet funny book traces the obsessions and pitfalls of a group of young, listless Melburnian women vying for power under a beguiling boss.
Our heroine, Marnie, is a white woman in her late 20s. . She finds herself compromising her ethics and values to become a Beautiful Woman.
Her idol, Luna Peters, is the founder and CEO of Rytuał, a cosmetics brand with 10 simple products that generate more than $200 million in profit and has successfully cracked the international market.
When Marnie is randomly recruited to work for the company, she discovers a workplace run by aggressively aspirational women; women who own silk suits, have their curtain bangs trimmed every six weeks and make their own natural wine in their chic inner-city apartments and whose laughs (like their personalities) are rigidly 'neat and contained'.
The company is a McDonald's assortment of white 'girlboss' feminism circa 2008. The meeting rooms are named after women who have been 'unfairly treated in the public eye' – Billie [Holiday], Jean [Seberg], Amy [Winehouse], Britney [Spears].
'We come together to push out masculine norms and welcome in the divine feminine,' Luna espouses. 'We conspire together to overthrow destructive patriarchal standards.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
a day ago
- Perth Now
Swimmers strip down and the ocean during winter solstice
Swimmers have stripped off and braved brisk waters on the shortest day of the year. Wearing nothing but red swim caps, 3000 souls took the annual nude sunrise plunge into Hobart's River Derwent to mark the winter solstice on Saturday. The water temperature was about 13C as the naked pack took to the river at 7.40am, sparking shrieks and anguished yells. Liz Cannard, who has been travelling around Tasmania for almost four months with her husband, said she was petrified before taking the dip. 'I'm not a strong swimmer and I don't take my gear off for anybody ... so I've ticked off a couple of things today,' the Geelong resident said. HOBART, AUSTRALIA- NewsWire Photos- JUNE 21, 2025. Dark Mofo Nude Solstice Swim 2025 at Long Beach Sandy Bay. Nikki Davis-Jones/ NewsWire Credit: NCA NewsWire Lizzy Nash from Sydney was also in the mood for a bit of carpe diem. 'It's about seizing the moment, seizing life and being inspired,' she said. 'This is the sort of thing that motivates you to want to do more and challenge yourself. It was awe-inspiring and I absolutely loved it.' The free swim is part of the Dark Mofo festival and started with just a few hundred participants in 2013. Melburnian Belinda Chambers has been watching people do it on television for years and decided to work remotely from Tasmania for the festival so she could stay and leave on a high. 'So exhilarating,' she said post swim. 'I was nervous but there was this almost primal moment of everyone being together that carries you along, and a sense of pure happiness.' Dark Mofo festival returned to its full pomp in 2025 after running a reduced program in 2024 so it could find a more sustainable financial model. It has made a name for itself by courting controversy and in 2018 drew the ire of some by installing inverted Christian crosses along Hobart's waterfront. HOBART, AUSTRALIA- NewsWire Photos- JUNE 21, 2025. Dark Mofo Nude Solstice Swim 2025 at Long Beach Sandy Bay. Nikki Davis-Jones/ NewsWire Credit: NCA NewsWire Festival artistic director Chris Twite said the swim was a tremendous way to bring things to a close. 'The response in 2025 has been incredible,' he said. 'The streets of Hobart have come alive with locals and visitors celebrating winter and Dark Mofo again.' University of Queensland psychologists surveyed swimmers in previous years before and after they took the plunge and found a significant boost in feelings of connection. 'People told us about whether they felt pain and pleasure during the swim,' Laura Ferris said. 'And those who rated their swim as pleasurable also felt more social connection with the other people around them.' It is an example of people seeking out aversive experiences, such as eating extremely spicy food or watching horror movies. 'This is what psychologists call 'benign masochism',' Dr Ferris said. That could be the optimal term for expeditioners at Australia's four Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research stations, who also celebrated the solstice with a much-colder traditional plunge. At the three Antarctic stations, a hole is cut in the sea ice each year and expeditioners have a quick dip in the sub-zero waters. 'The shock is closely followed by a rush, which is quickly followed by a scramble to the ladder to get the hell out of that water,' Mawson Station leader Dave Roberts said. 'Ironically, the water is warmer than the wind chill, so it's all a bit confusing but totally worth it.' Those on the sub-Antarctic base at Macquarie Island have it mildly easier for their beach swims, with temperatures hovering from 2C to 4C. A shared meal and the exchanging of gifts and awards round out expedition festivities for the solstice, which is historically the most important day on the Australian Antarctic calendar. 'It's the soul of the Antarctic winter,' Casey Station leader Andy Warton said.
Perth Now
3 days ago
- Perth Now
Kelsea Ballerini doesn't want exercise to be a 'punishment'
Kelsea Ballerini doesn't want exercise to "feel like a punishment". The 31-year-old singer's favourite way of keeping in shape is to go for a good long walk, but she also takes regular Pilates classes because she "doesn't hate" doing it as much as other formers of keeping fit. She told People magazine about her fitness routine: "For me, it's walks. Walking is so good for you. It also makes you get fresh air and some good sunshine, and that's so good for your mental health. "I'm a Pilates girly. That for me has been my tried and true the last five years because I don't hate doing it, and I don't want working out to feel like a punishment." When it comes to her diet, Kelsea follows an "80/20 rule". She explained: "So 80% of the time I'm really healthy, 20% of the time catch me at McDonald's. "My favourite thing to cook — I've been upping my protein a lot recently just because I didn't realise how much protein we're supposed to have as women— and I cook a really good chimichurri steak ... that is my go-to. "I'll do it a couple of times a week. I have some in the fridge downstairs ready to go." The Cowboys Cry Too singer loves an occasional treat meal from McDonalds, which she believes is a throwback to her childhood. She said: "As a kid, I was such a picky eater, and my parents joke with me, like, 'All you would eat were waffles and chicken nuggets.' So I think it's just probably my inner child craving it still." As she gets older, Kelsea's attitude to fitness has changed with her desire to be "360 healthy". She said: "I think especially in my early twenties and mid-twenties, the idea of fitness was very much only aesthetically driven, and that was my goal. "The older I've gotten, [the more] mentally healthier I've gotten as well... "I want to be mentally healthy. I want to be physically healthy, emotionally healthy, and I want to be able to sustain the life and the career that I've been lucky enough to build for myself... "It's the most important thing to me now, honestly."
The Age
4 days ago
- The Age
The winter accessory of 2025 that can cost $30 – or $37,000
When once-daggy ties escaped the fashion mausoleum earlier this year to become style statements around the necks of Nicole Kidman and Rihanna, the door was left ajar for another endangered accessory to escape. Belts, narrow and wide, slipped through the cracks to be resurrected on the runway, in fashion shoots and across countless winter coats. Celebrities such as Sirens actor Milly Alcock, actor Jacob Elordi, musician Doechii and supermodel Bella Hadid buckled up following belt-laden collections from Loewe, Miu Miu, Chloe, Zimmermann and Schiaparelli. 'Belts used to be a bit of an afterthought … something you'd grab just to hold your trousers up,' says menswear designer Christian Kimber, who has belts scattered across his latest advertising campaign. 'A good belt can really pull everything together. It's become more of a character in a story than just a background prop.' After being relegated to fashion purgatory for decades – because magazine and celebrity stylists were fearful of breaking up the line of a silhouette with a horizontal belt – the accessory's revival can be traced to a perfect storm of events. The return of high-waisted pants, the popularity of weight loss drugs encouraging shrinking members of the fashion community to extend the lifespan of expensive pants purchased pre-injection, and the cost of living crisis have all driven the belt's stock higher. 'People are dressing with more intent these days,' Kimber says. 'They're buying less, but buying better. A belt's one of those things that lasts forever if you get it right, so I think it's become more of a conscious purchase.' Buying less doesn't mean paying less. A fringed leather belt from celebrity favourite label Alaïa, worn by Kendall Jenner and Miley Cyrus, costs $6810. Luxury marketplace 1stDibs currently has three vintage Chanel belts for more than $US24,000 ($37,016).
