Latest news with #TheHouseofDavid
Sunday World
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sunday World
Irish singer says she's been cancelled for supporting Supreme Court trans ruling
'It was met with an intense internet pile-on and online harassment' Singer Molly O'Mahony has spoken of the 'chilling effects of being quietly cancelled' after she publicly supported the UK Supreme Court's trans ruling. The Cork native posted about how she had endured the 'quietest summer of music work in over a decade' as she was dropped from gigs and offers of work 'have all but dried up'. She said this had followed an Instagram post on April 22 in support of the UK Supreme Court ruling on the definition of 'woman'. 'It was met with an intense internet pile-on and online harassment,' O'Mahony explained. 'I lost hundreds of followers within days, and individuals publicly called for my work to be boycotted. 'Since then I have experienced the chilling effects of being quietly cancelled from the Irish music scene that I've been a part of for 13 years. I've been dropped from bills I was due to play, and offers of gigs have all but dried up. We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review your details and accept them to load the content 'It is my quietest summer of music work in over a decade, in fact; quieter than the covid years, even.' The Ballydehob musician said this had come as she is trying to finish and release her second record, 'a costly endeavour, as any independent musician knows' in the wake of her debut album, The House of David. 'It is a challenge, at the best of times, to find the resources to keep making music, let alone make a living as an artist in this country,' she wrote. 'Suffice to say, it all feels a whole lot harder now. 'The feeling that there is nowhere to turn is particularly pernicious,' she added. 'I have very little confidence that any of the institutions and gatekeepers of the industry will have my back. 'All are beholden to a culture which dictates that those who don't toe the line must be ousted.' O'Mahony insisted that she was just one of many women and men in the public eye, 'who have been punished for trying to speak in defence of women's rights against the prevailing tide of gender ideology'. 'The myriad messages of private support I have received since April tells me two things - that my views are widely sympathised with in Ireland, and that people are terrified to proclaim it,' she revealed. 'Is it not the remit of artists to speak what's true for them? How can creativity flourish if we are all expected to be a monolith of sameness where our beliefs are concerned?" Molly O'Mahony Today's News in 90 Seconds - July 8th She added that she wanted to 'an end to the vice grip that tyrannical woke liberalism has on the arts and on free speech'. 'And an end to cancel culture. If there are artists out there who resonate, I dare you to sound the alarm with me. The culture is not going to change until there is enough of us calling for it.' In her April post, O'Mahony had written how, 'this is an anomaly post about sex and gender issues'. 'If this is not your bag, you can just admire this especially beautiful piece of kelp and move on with your life,' she added, alongside a picture of her holding some seaweed. 'For the record, I f***ing love women,' she added. She wrote about how, in light of the landmark Supreme Court Ruling in the UK 'declaring unequivocally woman means biological woman', she wanted to add a 'counter narrative to the online echo chamber I exist in'. She wrote in part how trans-identified males are human beings – 'worthy of dignity, protection and the freedom to express themselves however the hell they want'. 'They are not however women,' she added. She also highlighted how it is the 'likes of prisons and rape crisis centres that most high-stakes where male violence against women are concerned, places that house women who are especially vulnerable'. O'Mahony had performed as part of the art-folk group Mongoose for which released their debut album in 2015. Their second outing Suck the Wound landed in 2019 with O'Mahony releasing her first solo project three years later.
Forbes
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Thousands Of Costumes Were Handmade For Prime's ‘House Of David'
David (Michael Iskander) in HOUSE OF DAVID S1 Photo Credit: Jonathan Prime/Prime © Amazon Content Services LLC As much as I would like to, I cannot tell you exactly how many costumes were handmade for The House of David, an excellent new series you can find on Amazon Prime. When I met with the show's costume designer, Mayou Trikerioti, it was literally the first question I asked. She couldn't tell you the total number either, though that's not for lack of trying. When production was wrapping up, in the costume department group chat, Trikerioti asked the costume team to help her tally everything up. 'I said, guys, can we make a note of how many costumes we hired or rented or made? And the items we made or embroidered? Everybody was like, no way. It was impossible,' she told me. Every costume department works in multiples because any production needs backups, costumes for stunts and for stand-ins, and sometimes costumes have to change, like when a garment needs to show damage. But The House of David goes much, much further than all of that, which does an enormous credit to the show. Under Trikerioti, a literal army of designers and makers created a massive quantity of costumes ever created, one of the largest wardrobes ever made for a single production. And these multitudinous costumes were made by hand, as in hand sewn and even hand embroidered. I am not sure I can understate the magnitude of what Mayou Trikerioti created. It is astonishing work, and I write that completely without hyperbole. Goliath (Martyn Ford) in HOUSE OF DAVID S1 Photo Credit: Nikos Nikolopoulos/Prime © Amazon Content Services LLC Trikerioti joined the House of David team early on in production, and before she began making anything, the designer began visiting the big name costume hires, like Peris Costumes, seeing what already existed and could be rented for extras and what fabrics might be available for everything else. She began producing sort-of podcasts, nothing ever to be made public, but as a way to share what she was thinking with the director/producers, Jon Erwin, Jon Gun, and production designer, Chad Krowchuk. 'Our amazing production designer,' that's how Trikerioti described him, 'he's been massively supportive and it's a joy to get on really well with your fellow creatives.' One feature of the larger costume houses that audiences might not know about? 'These costume warehouses also have fabric. You can actually put together a live mood board of colors and textures. And that was what my podcasts were about.' A digital illustration from the work designing costumes for Ayelet Zurer as Ahinoam. Before she accepted the job she found herself sketching, drawings she brought digital copies of to an early meeting. 'We were discussing the creative side of it, because that was the last step,' the designer told me. 'Erwin was saying how he envisioned it, what he liked from other shows, what he didn't like from other shows. And in the end, I was like, ok, fantastic, can I show you something?' Trikerioti showed him three of her sketches and it sounds like kismet, an advantageous meeting of minds, whatever the right way to explain something so intangible. 'At that point, I felt like the communication was flowing. And we had the same vision, which has been a blessing throughout this year, because there is total trust. It's great.' Early on, Trikerioti told me, 'I was just putting things together. Just fabrics and textures and types of clothing and types of tunics and figuring out the direction for this world, immersed in lots of costumes and fabrics. It was mostly for background, because obviously all the principles' costumes are handmade, it was more to create the feel. I think communication is really key. Like, I'm really massive on that, just keeping the information flowing within the department. And obviously, with the directors, the producers, I need to keep the information everywhere.' Achish (Alexander Uloom) with an ornate sword and shield. The designer was working with her team in the United Kingdom when she began her research in earnest. It sounds like a bit of a daunting task, to costume hundreds of people for a story that takes place a thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ. I mean, where does a person even start? 'We had the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library and the British Museum at our fingertips,' she told me. 'You can actually see costumes in the archives. You can see relics. I also had the Library of the London College of Fashion, that was a big support to me.' This is where one of the biggest challenges lay, extant garments are nonexistent and there are not a lot of surviving images from ancient times which show what people were wearing. Especially not regular people. 'There were lots of written accounts,' Trikerioti explained. It turned out that random written descriptions of clothing from surviving texts from the era offered the best, historically accurate information about what the characters in this story would have worn. 'We tried to make drawings out of the descriptions, to illustrate, and then to create our own.' A digital Illustration of costumes for Michael Iskander as David for "House of David." All the preliminary work was turned into a show bible, 'I picked and chose what I liked,' Trikerioti told me, 'and that was the research that, moving forward, everybody that worked on House of David's costume department used. Obviously, people extended the research and that was fabulous.' Trikerioti is the furthest thing from imperious, and as she told me about the process I saw how the excellent costumes are the result of a maestro allowing and encouraging those working under her to do their best work the way that work needed to be done. 'It was setting the rules in a way,' the designer explained, 'and within those rules, we were setting smaller rules for world creation.' Perhaps related to her process, her eye for every detail, the space where costumes are made matters to this designer. 'I'm a deep believer in being immersed in an environment,' Trikerioti explained to me. 'We had three big lots of square meter locations for costumes. When we were setting up the first one, I wallpapered all the rooms with all the research, with all the different tribes, with all the color schemes. It was the research and clothes, fabrics, fabric colors, embroidery. It was really, really beautiful. You could look at one wall and that was one tribe and you could look at another wall and that was one army. We even put the families on the wall. Because there are a lot of names and a lot of people and a lot of relationships. We put all the family trees on the wall. And then, of course, the designs as well, but that followed later.' Joab (Aury Alby), King Saul (Ali Suliman) and Prince Jonathan (Ethan Kai) in HOUSE OF DAVID It would have been easy for the many tribes and armies in this story to blend together, perhaps even easier for all the clothing to become lost in a fog of dusty brown. Instead the flowers in an insignia, the metal used to make a circlet, the weave of a piece of braided leather armor; any decorative detail is not mere ornamentation. I have often argued that our clothing gives away all our secrets. Costumes do this too, but they are purposeful communication between storyteller and audience. The clothing characters wear can be created to deftly pass on information that cannot be left to dialogue or exposition. When I see that type of purposeful design I feel better about the world. Because people doing good work well, work that they love, that matters. And witnessing it helps all of us be better people. Getting to do work we love well helps us to be better people. Princess Mirab (Yali Topol Margalith), Queen Ahinoam (Ayelet Zurer), King Saul (Ali Suliman), Prince Jonathan (Ethan Kai) and Princess Mychal (Indy Lewis). Mayou Trikerioti is absolutely an artist. If you watch carefully, you'll see certain colors, specific plants or flowers, purposeful use of veils and detailed weaponry, artisan pieces, all of it with a deeper meaning. That's Trikerioti winking at us, telling us all the things about the characters on screen that words can not be relied upon to communicate. It is fabulous and it is fun to see such intelligent and exceptional work. The full first season of House of David is available to stream now on Amazon Prime.
