Any interest in a free, sparkly Prada dress that would be perfect for a fancy New Years Eve party, a black-tie wedding, or just feeling glamorous AF while you sit on the couch watching Netflix? Selena Gomez has you covered.
The singer took to Instagram stories this week to share that she’s giving away the dress she wore in her “Back to You” music video to a lucky fan. The dress is covered in silver sequins and decorated at the bottom with bright green feathers, and it looks fabulous in the video while Gomez goes to a party, steals a car, and falls in love. (As you do.) But it must have served its purpose for the singer, because she’s ready to pay it forward to her fans.
In the Instagram video, she gives viewers a glimpse into her closet. “This is my dress that I wore for the ‘Back to You’… music video, and I kind of want to give it away to someone,” she says at one point. “So, if you want this dress, let me know, and I will just send it along to you because it has no use being in my closet whatsoever.”
Gomez’s “Back to You” dress isn’t the only sparkly article of clothing she’s looking to purge from her wardrobe. In the same series of posts, she also shows off an old ice skating outfit from her short stint as an ice skater. “So the story behind this outfit, with a matching scrunchie, might I add, was that I decided I was going to be an ice skater for two days. That didn’t really work out,” she explains. “I’ll give that away too.”
Check out the video below to see the Prada dress in all its glittering glory, then shoot Selena a DM and hope for the best.
It’s hard to remember, but it really wasn’t all that long ago that Sephora sales were a rare thing. Before the retailer kicked off its Weekly Wow series featuring regular 50%-off discounts, you had to rummage through pages of sales sections or drop cash so you could trade in VIB points. Still, the words free and Sephora are rarely heard in the same sentence, with the exception of free samples. But even those tiny packets of product require spending money on something in order to add them to cart. That’s why its latest deal is pretty much unheard of for the beauty emporium: For one weekend only, Sephora is giving out free face masks. And nope, there’s not a single catch or fine print.
Where most freebies come with a gift with purchase or buy one, get one stipulations, Glamour confirmed with brand reps that all you have to do is get yourself to a Sephora store this weekend (July 27 through July 29) to get a free, regular-sized Rose or Pearl face mask from the retailer’s in-house line, Sephora Collection. Yes, summer Friday counts as the weekend because Sephora really does get us.
The only challenge—beside peeling yourself off the couch in the dead of summer—is that the lines will no doubt be absurd. When MAC announced it was giving away free lipstick for National Lipstick Day this time last year, Twitter erupted with photos of long waits and stories of supplies being gone in minutes. It’s unclear exactly how limited the quantities will be for Sephora’s Free Face Mask Weekend, but given that the deal is running for a whole 72 hours, it’s likely they’ll be more prepared for the demand.
If you haven’t yet tried Sephora Collection’s face masks and are wondering if braving the crowds are worth it to walk away only $6 in the green, consider this: they regularly pop up on beauty pros’ must lists thanks to the effective-yet-affordable serums they’re soaked in. They won’t give you the instant results of, say, one of GlamGlow’s best-sellers, but for cheap sheet masks, they really get the job done. I like to leave the aloe one in the fridge on days my skin is in need of some quick soothing (a game-changer after getting hella sunburned on a recent trip to Hawaii), while the fruit enzymes in the Pineapple mask are super gentle and help exfoliate without zapping your skin dry.
Then again, I once stood in a two-hour line on Black Friday at 3 A.M. to get the full DVD set of Sex and the City for $60, so maybe I’m a terrible judge of a good deal. I’ll let you make that call. So just in case you’d rather skip the wait and shop online (or want to pick up a few extra masks in addition to the Rose or Pearl freebie if you do hit up the store), here are a few of our favorites worth nabbing.
In a world short on joy, humor can be a unifier and a survival tool. In that spirit, we bring you our Comedy Issue, a month-long celebration of funny (and fearless) women and the enduring power of a good laugh.
Much has been made of the political tenor dominating the land of late-night talk shows these days. And for good reason: In addition to cracking jokes, hosts are now expected to take a hard stance on the day’s divisive headlines. Unfortunately, with a few notable exceptions, the talent fronting late-night is still white, still male. (Among the top late-night shows we looked at, rarely are more than 30 percent of the writers women; only about 11 percent are people of color.) This means every whistle-blowing monologue or feminist sketch that makes it to air is more than just comedy—it’s a shot across the bow from the underrepresented. To find out what it’s really like in the late-night trenches, Glamour gathered top female writers from six shows to talk about how they check the guys, the highs and lows of being comedy’s secret weapons, and why, if we want our girls to be funny, we have to get to them early.
GLAMOUR: Let’s get right to it. Regarding diversity in the writers room, how are today’s shows doing?
JASMINE PIERCE, staff writer, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: I mean, we’ve made a ton of progress, even in the last year or so, regarding diverse rooms and diverse shows. But there is still a long way to go.
KAT RADLEY, staff writer, The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: I would say it’s still, what, 20 to 25 percent for women in the room? Does anyone have a 50-50 writers room?
PIA GLENN, staff writer, The Opposition With Jordan Klepper: [Raises hand.] Boom! Yes. We’re the newest of the bunch, so there might be a correlation. But when we go one tier above…to the decision makers? We are right back at largely white men.
MELINDA TAUB, head writer, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee: Tina Fey said something about how some shows view women like cappuccino makers, like, “We have one. What would we do with another?” And while that’s still an issue—not just with women but also with other marginalized groups—I think shows are realizing that even if you don’t want to [equalize rooms] out of the goodness of your heart, it makes your show better.
ARIEL DUMAS, writer and digital content producer, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: We just hired our fourth female writer, which is really exciting. But what’s more exciting, for me, is that people aren’t saying “women in comedy” so much anymore. I never think about being a woman in comedy. I’m just in comedy.
JASMINE: Yeah, I’m not a comedienne. I’m just…a comedian.
ARIEL: I mean, do we sit around wanting to know what it’s like to be a man in comedy?
PHOTO: Danielle Levitt
From left: Molly McNearney, Pia Glenn, and Melinda Taub
KAT: Um, I definitely feel like I know…. [All laugh.] While there is work to be done, everyone thinks that means actively going out and finding more women to write for you. Which is one way to do it, sure, but it’s also systemic, because fewer women are trying to be comedians. You have to start with the five-year-olds. Tell them they’re funny. Encourage them to express their comedy. Because it’s not occurring to so many until they’re 25 or 30 that they can do comedy.
MOLLY McNEARNEY, co–head writer, Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Most of the application packets that are coming into any show are still white men. And it’s our job to reach out [to women]. We have to get into different communities, to people who might not think they can do our job because they never saw someone that looked like them doing it. Twitter has helped a lot.
JASMINE: Yes! It’s a great tool for encouraging young writers. I used to write for Reductress, and now I make an intentional effort to support their new, good writers. I always tweet a writer’s stuff and then message her and tell her, “You are so good. Keep going!” We have to be active about it. Otherwise it’s so scary.
GLAMOUR: Do you have to actively navigate being the gender minority?
KAT: It’s really just about working together. For us, it’s never been like: The men write the man stuff and the women write the woman stuff. Everyone can and does do everything.
JASMINE: It’s the same for us.
ARIEL: Us too. If I want to pitch a thing about IUDs, a super-female womany-woman story, I don’t feel like I am the one that has to write it. The guys can write that too.
KAT: But we do have to be conscious of checking in. I noticed the other day in the rehearsal script someone had written “congressman.” I texted our head writer, “We need to change it to ‘member of congress’ or ‘congress people.’” He changed it immediately.
ARIEL: I think that’s what’s really helped by having women in the room. Our writers are all so feminist and antiracist, but everyone has the ability to say something if they need to.
MELINDA: You have to be as honest as you can with your staff. I think that helps me, and helps all of us, to find the most dangerous, true version of what we want to say, even if it means texting Sam in the middle of the night—which, for her, is like 9:00 P.M.—when you’re having feelings.
PIA: In our room I think there is a real validity to everyone’s lived experience being different. I don’t ever blame anyone for things they might not know or have not been exposed to. It’s what you do once you’re made aware that matters more. I think about the sexual assault stories that came up and how we talk about it in the room—there’s a visceral anger that comes up when the women speak about it. And the guys know to shut up and take it in.
PHOTO: Danielle Levitt
From left: Kat Radley, Jasmine Pierce, and Ariel Dumas
GLAMOUR: How can writing for a host give agency to your perspective?
MELINDA: It’s so different when it’s women-dominated from the top. I didn’t really realize how hard I was fighting to write in other people’s voices until I got to Sam and I was like, Oh, I can just be me.
PIA: Jordan absolutely amplifies my voice in terms of point of view, because I am such an advocate for black female representation, and in the comedy world [makes sad trumpet noise]. So, much of the time, even as filtered through this extremely white man, I can take credit for our angle on Trump’s America or dog whistles about racism. It might not sound like my voice coming out of his mouth, but it definitely is.
MOLLY: I have a unique situation in that the host of my show is also my husband, so he’s uniquely qualified to amplify my voice as a comedian and writer. Like when our son went through his heart condition—his open-heart surgeries—Jimmy allowed me to tell a story that I never could have. I was feeling those same things but didn’t have the strength to go on national television and talk about it. I would have made Jimmy’s crying look like nothing.
KAT: Trevor always asks questions, like with the Harvey and Me Too stuff. He’d ask if the approach was right, if we wanted to lead the discussion.
ARIEL: Same with Stephen. He is so attuned to the hypocrisy women experience. Like how the Trump administration is pushing “abstinence education” by teaching women sex-refusal techniques. Stephen lost his mind and just let me riff around Trump’s 19 accusers and how he was helping them learn sex-refusal techniques with a real hands-on approach.
KAT: Ha! It’s like, we already know the sex-refusal techniques.
JASMINE: We’ve all tried them.
KAT: We invented them.
GLAMOUR: Was there a time when you had to say to a male writer, “No way. That won’t fly”?
MOLLY: I remember when Hillary was coming on a year ago, people were still making pantsuit jokes. I was like, “What the fuck are you doing? You’re minimizing this woman to her clothes?” We’d never talk about a man’s outfit. Everyone heard me and they did cut it, but there is learning to be had. These men don’t know, ya know? So it’s our responsibility to teach them. In the same way, I would hope that we’d all be open to learning about things that might offend straight white guys! [All laugh.]
MELINDA: Funny, I…don’t care about that?
PIA: I am totally fine offending them.
Seth Plattner is a freelance writer and editor in New York City.
When three-time French Open winner Serena Williams returns to Grand Slam tennis next week, the top competitor will face a mother of a battle.
After 14 months off the court to recover not just from childbirth, but from near fatal complications that kept her bedridden for six weeks, Williams will compete in the French Open, dropped from her previous rank of No. 1 down to No. 453. The decision could compel Williams to face her most serious rivals at the start of the competition, an unexpected elimination risk for the 23-time Grand Slam winner who was ranked No. 1 in the world after she won the Australian Open while pregnant in 2017. (Yes, while pregnant.)
“This year again, tournament officials will establish the list and ranking of the women’s seeds based on the WTA ranking,” the French Tennis Federation said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Consequently, [the seeds] will reflect this week’s world ranking.”
And in this week’s world ranking, Williams is No. 453.
This isn’t bad luck for Williams or a simple blameless blunder in the rules. Make no mistake: officials at the French Open have opted to overlook Williams’ circumstances, despite the protestations of even Williams’ rivals.
At the Italian Open last week, Maria Sharapova, who’s lost three Grand Slam finals to Williams, said that she’d “like to see that [rule] change.”
“It’s such an incredible effort for a woman to come back from physically, emotionally,” Sharapova said, adding that motherhood adds “another whole dimension to the travel, to the experiences, to the emotions, to the physicality of every single day.” If a woman wants to take that on, Sharapova seemed to suggest, she shouldn’t be set back for it.
Elina Svitolina, who won the Italian Open, also wanted to see Williams seeded this week. Simona Halep put it in the plainest possible terms: “It’s normal to give birth. It’s normal to have protected ranking.” This, she continued, “is more than tennis.”
In the meantime, some technical rules have been bent to accommodate her. Williams is able to compete in Paris at Roland Garros because the Women’s Tennis Association at least does have a “special ranking rule,” which allows competitors to use a previous ranking to enter up to eight tournaments within 12 months of their return from childbirth or other serious injuries. But the fact that the WTA doesn’t distinguish between genuine impairments and the birth of an infant speaks to just how much ground the tour needs to cover to meet the modern needs of its participants.
While it’s true that women have tended to retire from the sport before children, more and more of them have decided not to put off motherhood to finish competition. As USA Todaynotes, Kim Clijsters won three of her four majors after the birth of her first child. And Sania Mirza, who’s won three Grand Slam titles in doubles, has said she will return to the court after she delivers in October.
Since she delivered her daughter in September, Williams has “had to rebuild her body,” her coach Patrick Mouratoglou told the WTA tour website. And while she’s entered two events since then (at Indian Wells and the Miami Open), Mouratoglou explained that the French Open is the real return. “Serena will play the French Open to win it”—no matter how arduous the climb back to the top.
The draw for the French Open is set for later this week, and competition will start over the weekend. In at least one respect, Williams continues to be treated like the record breaker she is. She tweeted on Monday that she’d been tested for the second time this week, despite a standing that wouldn’t seem to demand such concerted attention.
That same afternoon, the WTA said it would reconsider its position on protected seeds for its 2019 season and added that it remains “committed to evolving with the needs of our players and are very supportive of those players returning from maternity leave to the tour.”
When Williams entered the Miami Open, James Blake, its director and a former competitor himself, said that he saw the matter as more straightforward, not a matter for as much deliberation as the WTA seems to feel it needs. “She had a kid, which we should all be celebrating, so when she comes back there should be a grace period where she can still be seeded,” he said.
Instead, he went on, “It’s a kind of punishment, which is tough.”
Democratic Representative Maxine Waters of California,—she who made “reclaiming my time” a rallying cry—will be is now claiming the spot following President Donald Trump‘s first State of the Union address next Tuesday. Directly after his speech, she’ll be popping by the beginning of BET’s Trump-focused Angela Rye’s State of the Union, a quarterly special bringing political commentator Rye and BET together to comment on Black American issues, according to Buzzfeed.
Waters is known for her fierce outspokenness, including a few viral moments during the past year, whether it’s been for her grilling of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin during which she infamously “reclaimed her time”, or for that moment when she started an “Impeach 45!” chant at the 2017 Glamour Women of the Year Awards. She’s also a feminist icon: she recently wrote an essay for Glamour.com about how the Women’s March revived her faith in the younger generation.
Don’t expect her told hold back during the BET special. “Auntie Maxine,” as her devoted fans call her, has already made her feelings about the president quite clear. While politics is often jargon and spin, Waters hasn’t been afraid to say what’s really on her mind when it comes to Trump—or really anything.
“The most upsetting part is discovering that the person who won the election and became the president of the United States of America is a man who has no good values. His character astounds me,” she said in an interview with Glamour.com last June. “I can’t believe that we have a president who would lie, who would distort, and who does not appear to have an appreciation for government and how it works.”
Waters’ speech is not the official Democratic response to Trump’s first State of the Union—Representative Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts will be delivering that. But official or not, surely Waters will have plenty to say. Perhaps she’ll coin a new catchphrase?
There’s something criminal happening on Riverdale this season. No, it’s not anything the Black Hood’s doing. So what if a masked murderer is running around town stalking people? That’s far from Riverdale‘s biggest problem. I’m talking, of course, about this season’s total neglect of Cheryl Blossom.
Cheryl Blossom is the most interesting character on Riverdale, full stop. Jughead’s beanie, Archie’s abs, and Betty’s fluctuating ponytail cower in the presence of Cheryl’s fire engine red-hued locks. She’s the queen bee—a star who says lines like, “You stuttering sapheads are too dim to exercise your own rights” with such intensity and seriousness, it’s scary.
Cheryl had a beefy narrative last season because the central mystery was about her murdered twin brother, Jason Blossom. But in season two, she’s been completely relegated to supporting status. In one episode, her sole purpose was to help Veronica and Betty catch Kevin cruising for guys. In another, she was just Josie’s sidekick. Hell, she literally had zero lines in the episode from November 1. That’s outrageous. It’s offensive.
Sure, things started out promising: Early teasers indicated Cheryl and her mother, Penelope, would have friction over the fire at Thornhill. But those scenes have been few and far between. Instead of a rich mother-daughter plot, we’ve watched Cheryl and Penelope eviscerate each other with some biting lines and then walk away. They’re fleeting moments—and Cheryl deserves better.
She deserves just as much time as Jughead, who we’ve watched scribble pretentious prose into his typewriter for what feels like hours on end. Or Archie, who’s spent more time pouting this season about the “Red Circle” than Cheryl has talking. In fact, it’s high time for these two to play second-fiddle to Cheryl and her adventures. I’m not kidding: I want Cheryl to spend six episodes planning a ridiculous society called the “Blue Triangle” or some shit and have Archie just aimlessly walking in the background. Betty and Veronica can stay, because let’s be real: The female characters are the best part of this show. Jughead, however, is out. Bye! As Cheryl would say…
Real talk, though: It’s disheartening to have a dynamic female character like Cheryl thrown to the wayside in favor of storylines about hunky jocks. On the exterior, yes, Cheryl may seem a bit archetypical: She’s the mean girl. The Blair Waldorf. The rich cheerleader who fat-shames her classmates and bullies the less-popular girls. But as each episode from season one passed, we learned that wasn’t her at all. Like Blair, she was vulnerable and volatile and absolutely the product of her dysfunctional upbringing. She was interesting. There were so many layers to her that we slowly started peeling off. That’s not happening in season two, though. Instead, Cheryl is just a tool to keep the larger narratives going.
But I have hope going into the latter half of this season. Madelaine Petsch, who plays Cheryl, told us that Cheryl is getting an “unexpected love interest” this season. She’s yet to have one, so that must mean it’s happening in the forthcoming episodes. Plus, there are plot points from the former half we still haven’t seen fully-fleshed out: the aftermath of her almost-assault from Nick St. Clair, her obsession with Josie, her complicated relationship with her mother. There are plenty of places Riverdale show-runners can take Cheryl. Let’s hope they deliver.
