Journalism // My Brilliant Friend (The Square, autumn 2020)
I wrote a personal essay on the female "friendship muse" – the ways in which female friendship inspires creativity and growth – for the autumn "community" issue of The Square magazine. I also interviewed five London-based creatives – chef Melissa Hemsley, storytelling agency founders Emily Ames and Kate Hamilton, entrepreneur Molly Goddard and photojournalist Emily Garthwaite – on the women and places that have inspired them. You can read the full article in print or below. The Square is a London-based quarterly print publication focusing on luxury lifestyle and distributed by property company Dolphin Square. It has a circulation of 30,000 per issue.
My Brilliant Friend
As we emerge from an extended period of isolation, Olivia Squire reflects on the role of female friendship in inspiring the creative output of Londoners past, present and future.
When it comes to female friendship, I consider myself something of an expert. Having gone to an all-girls’ school, I’m well-versed in the peculiarly potent charge that jumps between women unobserved. My teenage years were a Bechdel test passed with flying colours. I remember them as a montage of huddled meetings in toilet cubicles, the unwavering support of what I now see were some decidedly bad style choices, and a novel’s worth of secrets scrawled on the backs of hands and textbooks, love notes to each other in a time when we were the centre of our universes.
In the years since, while I’ve been managed, mentored and vice versa by several wonderful men, there’s something about the freedom, intimacy and vulnerability inherent in female friendship that has driven both my personal life and creativity. To use the term coined by Julia Cameron, author of the cult classic The Artist’s Way, my friends and I are each other’s ‘believing mirrors’. We subvert the often damning internal monologues around our potential and reflect back the most positive versions of each other, bolstering our belief in our creativity at times when it might otherwise fail.
This shared support has always run through the arteries of my existence: absolutely vital, yet not something I necessarily reflected upon. However, in recent months, as the city locked down and we were all physically separated from our trusted ride-or-dies, I’ve realised just how much of my identity and inspiration stems from these ties. Ironically, the more isolated I became, the more I understood how much I define myself by those around me – and in particular, my female friends.
Even for those of us lucky enough not to have our health or means compromised, lockdown has been a process of reassembling. Following an unexpected redundancy, it’s my friends that have done this for me, slotting the parts of my identity back in place through a patchwork of What’s App voice notes, patchy Zoom calls and socially distanced walks. When I forgot who I was, these women were here to remind me.
So as I flaneused around empty streets, swapping strategies and refining ideas, I wondered why we have traditionally considered platonic creative partnerships between women to be less compelling than the idea of the artist and their muse? This much documented relationship is more readily characterised as driven by sex and power between a man and woman, and often sees the latter as more puppet than person. As Germaine Greer memorably described it, “the muse in her purest aspect is the feminine part of the male artist, with which he must have intercourse to bring into being a new work.”
This is not to say that female friendship is the saccharine, uncomplicated light to the poetic darkness of the artist and his muse. What strikes me when I think of some of my favourite female creative pairings of the 20th century is the relentless flux, the push and pull of hidden rivalries and reveries that renders each a twin to the other. There’s Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield, the only writer whom Woolf would ever admit she was jealous of, caught in a dance between envy and admiration that drove each to ever greater heights; the Mitford sisters, sparking off each other’s edges and searing society with their contradictory politics; or the surrealist artists Leonora Carrington and Leonor Fini, circumventing the male-dominated art world with their reflections of each other in their paintings.
Interestingly, this powerful dynamic is the focus of several contemporary novels. Consider the stellar success of Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend books in which the protagonists, Lila and Lénu, reflect and repel each other in equal measure across decades of friendship, each functioning as a mirror to the other that is sometimes believing, sometimes distorting. Regardless, their dynamic propels each woman forward, a driving force that gains particular potency when mapped against the hard edges of the modern city.
This energy is present in Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other, in which the contemporary tale of Britain and its capital is told through the experiences of 12 women and in particular through the friendship of Amma and Dominique. It’s in both Zadie Smith’s NW and Swing Time, where the divergent paths of childhood friends dovetail across the city, and in Candice Carty-Williams’ Queenie, in which the central character finds solace and heartbreak in her girl gang (the appropriately named Corgis) while navigating her early 20s.
Perhaps it’s the ease with which women dissolve into each other that makes friendship such a catalyst for their creativity and explains the rise of London’s female-only networking spaces, both real and virtual. The sheer number of productive female partnerships that have emerged from Mayfair’s AllBright Club, Fitzrovia’s The Wing and online community Found and Flourish all refute the common cliché that women see each other as competition. As Zara Bryson, founder of the Who’s Next podcast, which shines a light on the ways in which women enable each other to reach their potential, explains, “Instead of benchmarking your individual achievements with your peers and thinking that there is a scarcity of success that you’re competing for, if you invest in and support those around you, you can actually create more space for more success”.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, as we rebuild not just how we work but also how we make time and space for the people that inspire us, perhaps the specific power of female friendship – intense, dynamic, vulnerable and subversive – could provide a blueprint for how we construct a new world.
FIVE LONDON CREATIVES ON THE WOMEN AND PLACES THAT INSPIRE THEM
EMILY AMES AND KATE HAMILTON
Emily and Kate are best friends and the co-founders of Sonder & Tell, a content and communications agency they set up after working together at a travel magazine.
Are there any women whose work you would like to shout about?
Modern Lit is a book club set up by four friends that host talks and workshops and have great recommendations on their Instagram. Emily's sister Kirsty and her best friend Heidi have set up the most beautiful swimwear brand called Ayla Swim. And Duzi Studio is one of our favourite branding agencies set up by two women and friends, Charlotte and Ella.
Do you have a favourite fictional female friendship?
It has to be Arabella and Terry from the recent BBC series I May Destroy You for that ride or die energy.
Which places in London are your favourite for a creative brainstorm?
Quo Vadis for the eccentric characters; Hatchards Bookshop in Piccadilly Circus and Kate's living room right after she's had one of her frequent power naps.
EMILY GARTHWAITE
Emily is a photojournalist who lives between London and Iraq. She is also the founder of the all-women run translation company WomenTranslate.
Who is your female friendship muse?
Yagazie Emezi, a brilliant photojournalist I met during a photography festival in France. She’s always reminded me of my inner strength and supported me from afar. Mabel Evans, a documentary film producer and director of The Vavengers, an anti-FGM charity based in the UK, who I met near the Calais Jungle in Northern France. And Caroline Michel, the CEO of Peter Fraser Dunlop, has championed me since I first met her and does the same for so many women.
Are there any women whose work you would like to shout out?
Anti-FGM activist Leyla Hussein, documentary producer Joya Berrow and photojournalist Solmaz Daryani.
Which places in London are your favourite for a creative brainstorm?
The National Gallery when I feel introverted and in need of a quiet space for journaling. Lisboa Patisserie on Golborne Road, where my partner and I spend Sunday mornings brainstorming and dreaming – whenever I’m abroad I always miss a Portuguese pastel de nata with my morning coffee. And my friend’s mother’s home in Pimlico, where I invariably end up leaving charged up, inspired and, more often than not, a little tipsy.
MELISSA HEMSLEY
Melissa is a chef, cookbook author and sustainability champion passionate about spreading the power of feel-good food, most recently in her book Eat Green.
Who is your female friendship muse?
Roxanne Houshmand-Howell, who runs The Right Project. We met when we both worked in ethical fashion and she continues to uplift me and most importantly challenge me to be as sustainable, ethical and inclusive as I can be. Also the journalist and writer Brigid Moss. We first met about 10 years ago when she interviewed me. As well as always offering to read my work, she also encourages me to make time for my mental health – she helped me find a “grief retreat” (a week-long therapy course called The Bridge) and supported me through it.
Are there any women whose work you would like to shout out?
I’m a huge fan of Helena Lee. She writes so beautifully for two big magazines and is the founder of Eastside Voices, an online platform, live event series and soon to be collection of essays. I love the chefs and writers Romy Gill and Ravinder Bhogal – they often pair up to run fundraising supper clubs and community events – and I’m a big fan of Candice Brathwaite and Remi Sade, who run the community and platform Make Motherhood Diverse.
Which places in London are your favourite for a creative brainstorm?
Epping Forest. I always plan to lie back on a blanket and problem solve, but in reality I power-walk around as much of the forest as I can, which often does the job. I love the evening art classes at MasterPeace Studios – they are very generous with the prosecco as you paint! Also my local bookshop, the female-owned Phlox Books in Leyton, and Stoney Street café in Borough Market, where my friend Henrietta is head chef.
MOLLY GODDARD
Molly is one half of the founding duo behind Desmond & Dempsey, a London-based luxury pyjama brand inspired by menswear that she launched with her partner Joel.
How important have your female friends been in shaping your work?
It’s interesting because D&D started from stealing one of my partner Joel’s shirts, so when I think of who’s been most influential he immediately comes to mind. However, when I think about who’s shaping and aiding D&D now, it’s mainly women – we have nine women and two men on the team. I’ve found that women are usually better at doing lots of things simultaneously. Especially when starting our business, having that flexibility and team spirit has been really important.
Who is your female friendship muse?
My friend Keira is a make-up artist, so we’re in the same sort of industry – we go for a walk three times a week and I always sense-check my ideas with her. She does the same and we bounce things off each other. Also our first angel investor, Angelica, is a woman – she got the idea so much more quickly than male investors and she’s also been day-to-day in the thick of the business. She’s the only investor we would show as much vulnerability to.
Which places in London are your favourite for a creative brainstorm?
Brockwell Park has definitely become my regular spot, especially in the last few months. Keira and I often go for a walk here and many great ideas have been sparked among the trees.
