Category: 5. Entertainment

Designer Maria Butt — known more popularly as Maria B — has submitted her defence to the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) in a complaint made in August relating to the designer’s anti-transgender rhetoric on social media. The complaint was filed against her by Saima Butt for defaming the transgender community.

The designer had designated her lawyer to appear before the NCCIA on September 2. In the response submitted by Barrister Mian Ali Ashfaq on behalf of Maria B, a copy of which is available with Images, she claimed she was exercising her right to free speech and expression under Article 19 of the Constitution. The response states that the designer was expressing “reasonable opinions on matters of public concern” and that her post was made “within the ambit of lawful expression” and in “good faith and for the larger public good”.

The response argues that, because the people in the video the designer posted were hardly visible and wearing masks, her post can not be taken as defamation against any individual. The complaint, Maria B’s statement claimed, was made with “malicious intent” to harass her.

The Lahore police booked around 60 transgender persons and others in August and arrested some of them for allegedly organising an “objectionable” private party after Maria B uploaded photos and videos of it on her social media accounts. Later, a magistrate dismissed the case against the transgender persons after no incriminating material was found connecting them with the commission of the alleged offences.

She had posted videos on her social media accounts, demanding action against “transgender activists” that she claimed featured in the clips, terming such gatherings “against the moral values of the country”.

This is not the first time the designer has made anti-trans remarks on her social media accounts. Recently, she celebrated the banning of a screening of Joyland in Lahore, describing it as a “shameful transgender satanic show”. Joyland is a film and was Pakistan’s official Oscars submission for the year 2023.

Discover more Featured Stories  like this in The Strad Playing Hub  

When I recently received a loan of a 1714 Antonio Stradivari violin from Carriage House Violins in Boston, I discovered something unexpected: getting used to a new instrument isn’t just about adaptation — it’s an opportunity for a complete technical reset.

This particular violin, from Stradivari’s golden period, carries remarkable history. It belonged to Franz Kneisel, founder of America’s first professional string quartet, and premiered Dvořák’s ‘American’ Quartet, along with works by Debussy, Ravel, and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht.

But beyond its illustrious past, this instrument became my teacher, forcing me to recalibrate every aspect of my technique. Whether you’re adjusting to a new violin or seeking to refine your current playing, the exercises and ideas in this video can transform your approach as well.

The three dimensions of intonation

In my view, every note exists in three dimensions: how it sounds, how it feels, and how it looks. When adapting to a new instrument, let’s recalibrate these elements:

Sound goes beyond simple pitch accuracy. Each violin has unique resonance patterns — certain notes excite sympathetic vibrations, air modes and body modes differently. I practise slow scales, listening not just for pitch but for how each note activates these acoustical phenomena. When the violin suddenly ’lights up’ at certain frequencies, you’ve found its sweet spots. This Stradivari, with its slightly different string length compared to my personal violin, required me to rediscover where each note truly resonates.

Feel involves developing a physical map of your fingerboard. In fourth position, does your hand touch the instrument’s rib? Where does your palm contact the bout in high positions? These tactile landmarks become your GPS system. On the Strad, my usual reference points shifted slightly — what was a perfect fourth-position F on my violin was now slightly sharp. These millimetre differences matter.

Visual checkpoints might seem unconventional, but they work. Looking with my right eye, I can see where my finger intersects with certain visual markers to find specific pitches. It’s one more tool in the accuracy arsenal.

Shifting without a safety net

Most violinists rely heavily on ‘preparation notes’ — that quick moment where we touch the destination note before vibrating it. But practising ’air shifts’ removes this crutch entirely. You lift your finger, shift in the air, and land directly on the target pitch. It’s terrifying and transformative.

My favourite shifting exercise is single-finger arpeggios, moving through all positions, strings and fingers. The pattern I use to do this is quite simple, and doesn’t take long. The exercise also doubles as expressive training – treating each shift as a musical portamento rather than a mechanical motion.

Sound production reset

We know that sound production operates mainly on three interdependent variables: contact point (where the bow meets string), bow speed, and pressure. Many players get stuck treating these as separate parameters to adjust independently. Instead, I use an exercise called ’waves’ to integrate various parameters into a ‘feeling’ that one can manipulate. 

Using consistent bow speed, you create rhythmic indentations with your index finger, naturally adjusting weight and contact point in a pattern. The bow moves closer to the bridge with increased pressure, then retreats — like waves! This organic approach reveals the instrument’s pressure limits and optimal sound points without intellectualising the process.

This Stradivari surprised me — it accepts tremendous pressure without cracking, yet also produces that legendary golden, ethereal sound with the lightest touch. Each instrument has its own personality in this regard.

Chord playing as diagnostic tool

In the video below, I use Bach’s Sarabande from the Cello Suites (sorry, cellists) as a perfect vehicle for recalibrating chord playing and coordination. Every instrument has a unique threshold for how aggressively you can ’carve through’ multiple strings. Some require a gentle roll; others, like this Strad, allow you to drive through with remarkable depth as long as you maintain momentum.

I also discuss the importance of careful finger placement – especially for 5ths! Even high-level players naturally default to more pressure to ’push’ the 5th into tune. This is counter-productive and not reliable!

The broader reset

What struck me most about this experience wasn’t just learning a new instrument — it was how the process revitalised my fundamental technique. When everything feels slightly different, you can’t rely on muscle memory alone. You must return to conscious, deliberate practice.

This recalibration opportunity doesn’t require a Stradivari. Any change — a new bow, different strings, even returning to playing after a break — can serve as a catalyst for technical renovation. The key is recognising these moments not as obstacles but as invitations to rediscover and refine your craft.

For violinists at any level, the message is clear: embrace change, and keep things fresh. 

Listen to the 1714 ‘Kneisel’ Stradivari violin live in concert in the video below:

 

 

 Angelina Jolie’s starrer ‘Couture’ had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it turned into an emotional moment for the actress.

The Oscar-winning star, who plays a filmmaker battling breast cancer in the movie, spoke about her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, during a Q&A session after the screening. Bertrand died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 56.

According to PEOPLE, when an audience member who had recently lost a friend to cancer asked the cast about their message of “hope,” Jolie grew emotional before responding. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said gently, before recalling her mother’s own words.

“One thing I remember my mother saying when she had cancer, she said to me once… people were asking her how she was feeling and she said, ‘All anybody ever asks me about is cancer,’” Jolie shared as quoted by PEOPLE.

“So I would say, if you know someone who is going through something, ask them about everything else in their life as well, you know? They’re a whole person and they’re still living.”

Take A Look At The Post: 

One of the most heartrending moments of #TIFF50: an emotional Angelina Jolie, supported by her colleagues and a rapturous audience, offers words of hope for people dealing with cancer. (She expresses condolences for the person who asked, who lost a loved one from the disease.) pic.twitter.com/x4Fatn4Ufl
— Brandon Lewis @ TIFF50 (@blewis1103) September 7, 2025

The actress was joined on stage by her Couture co-stars Ella Rumpf, Anyier Anei, and the film’s writer-director Alice Winocour.

Also Read| Angelina Jolie Reveals WHY She Wore Her Late Mom’s Necklace During ‘Couture’ Shoot

 

Winocour explained that while the film is about cancer, it is also about life itself. “We really didn’t want to depress you about cancer, quite the opposite. It’s about the spirit of survival,” she said. Winocour also mentioned how Jolie immediately felt connected to the story because both her mother and grandmother died of breast cancer, and she herself underwent a double mastectomy in 2013 to lower her own risk.

In Couture, Jolie plays Maxine, a filmmaker who takes a job in the Paris fashion world while navigating a divorce, raising a teenage daughter, and facing a serious diagnosis. 

“Tilda Swinton – Ongoing” is the title of a curated exhibition at Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum, which will run Sept. 28, 2025-Feb. 8, 2026, allowing visitors to explore multihyphenate Tilda Swinton and some of her close collaborators.

THR can exclusively unveil a teaser video for the exhibition below.

“A unique and personal exhibition that centers on Swinton’s creative collaborations … will showcase new and existing work by eight artistic partners and close friends: Pedro Almodóvar, Luca Guadagnino, Joanna Hogg, Derek Jarman, Jim Jarmusch, Olivier Saillard, Tim Walker, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul,” says the museum, highlighting: “This marks the first time that Eye Filmmuseum has devoted such extensive attention to the creative influence of a performer.”

Swinton herself earlier this year described the exhibition as an opportunity “to reflect on the mechanics of my working practice over the past 40 years. And to come to rest on the – ever-present – bedrock and battery of the close fellowships I found from the very first and continue to rely upon to this day.”

She added: “In focusing attention on profoundly enriching creative relationships in my life, we share the narratives and atmospheres that inspire us: we offer new work, especially commissioned for the Eye exhibition, as the most recent gestures borne out of various companionable conversations that keep me curious, engaged, and nourished.”

The exhibition will also present a “contextual program” featuring the Scottish performer, artist, and fashion icon Swinton in conversation with “the artistic collaborators who have contributed new work to the exhibition. Complementing these live events, Eye will screen 40 films from Swinton’s body of work in its cinemas, alongside retrospectives dedicated to Joanna Hogg and Derek Jarman.”

So what can audiences expect from “Tilda Swinton – Ongoing”?

Guadagnino is creating “a new, intimate portrait of Tilda Swinton in the form of a short film and a sculpture,” according to Eye. “Together with childhood friend and filmmaker Joanna Hogg, Swinton will present Flat 19, a multimedia reconstruction of her 1980s London apartment and an exploration of memory, space, and personal history.”

Almodóvar will present his short film The Human Voice (2020), starring Swinton, in an installation format for the first time, according to the Eye team. Plus, “with a new edit, image treatment, and soundtrack, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch will transform existing footage from his absurdist zombie film The Dead Don’t Die (2019) into an entirely new installation.”

Together with the fashion historian Olivier Saillard, Swinton will also stage what is described as “a multi-day performance that brings a special wardrobe to life: garments from her personal collection, film costumes, red carpet dresses and family heirlooms.” They are also co-developing a special display of these pieces as part of the exhibition.

Meanwhile, photographer Tim Walker has visited Swinton at her family home for a photo series about “her connection to her forebears and continuity of place,” while Weerasethakul also visited Swinton at her home to create “an intriguing, meditative installation in which the presence of spirit and atmosphere becomes palpable.”

Finally, Swinton will pay tribute “to one of her greatest inspirations, filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942–1994), with whom she made a total of nine films,” says the museum. “A segment from The Last of England (1987) will be shown as an installation, alongside personal objects from Swinton related to their shared time and collaboration, as well as never-before-seen Super 8 footage, featuring Swinton as performer.”

The video teaser for “Tilda Swinton – Ongoing” at Amsterdam’s Eye features Swinton in various situations and outfits of different colors, but always full of the magnetism she is known for. Check out the teaser below.

There’s an art to the way Yumi Shin, Bergdorf Goodman’s chief merchandising officer, dresses. She plays with form like a painter at the easel—each layer deliberate, each accent exacting, and always with a personal flourish. Her signature strokes? A swoop of fabric curled over her shoulder, wind-swept hair tucked into a collar, a jaunty brooch pinned to a jacket lapel, a bold cuff worn over a sleeve.

Yumi, who has close to three decades of experience to her name—prior to joining Bergdorf Goodman seven years ago, she worked at Barney’s, Prada, and Saks Fifth Avenue—credits this alchemical approach to a handful of formative experiences. Her imagination was initially stirred during college as an art history student. Then came her first Comme Des Garçons show, which awakened “a new way of thinking and seeing fashion, as a form of creative expression rather than just clothing.” During her Barney’s days, early access and exposure to designers in their prime (Dries Van Noten, Prada, CDG, to name a few) gave her the freedom to experiment with shape and proportion. “Barney’s was my most creative time,” Yumi says of her six years there, then, “when I joined Prada, I learned how to build a wardrobe and incorporate investment pieces.” A soft spot for outerwear bloomed, and she became hooked on collecting coats and jackets (a passion that’s yet to be sated). When she moved on to Saks, where the dress code skewed more corporate, she found self-assurance in pieces from Sacai, mixed downtown edge with uptown polish. Towards the end of her tenure, she discovered Phoebe Philo, whose collections helped solidify her sense of style. Her clothes are “the definition of timeless,” she says of the quiet confidence Philo’s designs instill in her.

New York City might be home base for Yumi, but the always-on-the-go nature of her job means that when she’s not in a boardroom meeting, she’s at market appointments, nurturing relationships with new designers, or attending events, mingling with old and new friends. During Fashion Month, long days previewing collections stretch into weeks of international travel. To ensure her wardrobe works as hard as she does, Yumi says she prioritizes “comfort just as much as style”—and her go-to pieces thread the delicate balance of being creative and office-appropriate. She relies on staples from Phoebe Philo, The Row, and Prada to dress for a schedule that is objectively more 9-to-9 than it is 9-to-5, injecting a burst of joy into her looks with playful, personality-driven accessories. Yumi shows us how she does it, below.

Wear and Repeat

A proud outfit repeater, Yumi tells me she’s worn this pale yellow skirt from The Row all summer. The lace trim adds a feminine touch, and when she’s not dressing it up with heels (pictured are her current favorites, a suede, caramel-hued pair from Phoebe Philo), she says she likes to style it with an oversized T-shirt and flats. To contrast the femininity, here, she opted for a lightweight chore coat that adds rugged cool. “The barn jacket is thin enough that you can wear it as a blazer in the office.” For a cheeky wink, encouraged by her friend and photographer of this shoot, Tommy Ton, she strung a bounty of Loewe berries to her new Phoebe belt.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Photo: Courtesy of Tommy Ton

Editorial rigor is something that is so important with making art.

You can make all the art you want, but if you dilute it by putting out a bunch of crappy art, it’ll take history forever to sort through it all and find the little gems. Better that you sort through it. You don’t want to leave it to the paws of history.

Could you say something more about the importance of the South to your work and your career?

Actually, it was probably a drag on my career, if you think about it. It’s not the place to be from, if you have ambitions to be an artist.

Yet look at you.

And look at all the others. Look at Jasper Johns and look at Rauschenberg and look at Cy Twombly and look at the writers, the dozens and dozens of great writers. But it’s a hard hurdle to get over, I think, being Appalachian or being Southern.

You never made an effort to move to New York. That wasn’t something you felt was necessary. If you think about Jasper, and if you think about Bob and Twombly, they all left the South.

But Eggleston didn’t. He used the South as his subject matter. It’s a foreign country for most people, so it’s exotic in that way, and it offers a lot of inspiration.

Have you ever thought of doing something completely different?

Well, I am doing digital color. That’s about as different as you can get. Bless their hearts, I asked Leica to give me one of those digital cameras that I can put my 1946 lens on. It’s a Leica lens, but it has lots of anomalies and it handles the light differently than a modern lens. And I just love it. And they gave me a camera, which was extremely sweet of them, and I’m having a blast.

Does it opens doors for you?

Yeah—I think in a completely different way. And there’s a freedom to it that you don’t have with film, because film is expensive. It’s like $12 a sheet. But digital, it’s free.

Did the iPhone do anything for you?

I use it, but people are always surprised—they say, “Don’t you take tons of pictures of your grandchildren?” And I think I might’ve taken one.

Every time a young Melody Barnett attended church, she was awestruck. Something about the congregation’s elegant headwear always caught her eye. The women would often wear these extravagant, floral hats or don a more subtle pillbox style. And Barnett, owner of Hollywood rental house Palace Costume, remembers being entirely entranced.

“I would sit and just look,” Barnett says. “That’s one of the few things I remember about church, just looking at all the hats.”

This fashion-leaning fascination, she says, is a part of her heritage. Coming from a lineage of collectors, the 83-year-old has dedicated her life to the clothes of the past. For nearly 50 years, Palace Costume, a space open exclusively by appointment to stylists and costume designers, has offered a wearable fashion archive dating back to the 1880s. It’s become a one-stop shop for striking inspiration and embracing a timeless sense of glamour.

Since Palace Costume’s inception, Barnett’s clothing has appeared in classic films such as “Chinatown,” “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Godfather,” and more recent Oscar winners like “La La Land” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Beyond the silver screen, Beyoncé wore heart-shaped, reflective underwear on the cover of “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Chappell Roan sported a sequined marching band leotard for the “Hot to Go!” music video, and dangly, yellow earrings completed Billie Eilish’s look in the “What Was I Made For?” video — all pieces pulled from Palace.

The Fairfax Avenue storefront is surrounded by a kind of mystical energy. Tucked between a modern apartment complex and a wellness center, it’s easy to drive by and never notice the atypical castle facade, complete with fairy tale-esque murals of animal-faced figures, sheet ghosts and stone walls.

Inside, the charm continues. Behind the front desk, pathways resembling that of a labyrinth lead shoppers throughout the store’s four floors. Depending on which way you turn, you may end up in the jewelry room, where brightly colored costume bangles, heavy metal silver chokers and gold chains are piled high inside of glass cases, or in the prom dress section where the aisles are suffocated by petticoats. With over half a million items in Barnett’s inventory, the collection appears to be endless. Around each twist and turn, there’s a room solely for holiday wear, a walk-in devoted to fur coats, and several hallways lined with laundry baskets of purses and dress shoes waiting to be picked through.

On an early July morning, camera lights, additional racks of designer clothing and a team of creatives squeezed into the organized but cluttered space to formulate Barnett’s own moment of glamour. Her kitchen space, complete with brightly colored dishware and ceramic food replicas, was swiftly transformed into a makeshift vanity space where she sat to get a full face of makeup and her hair braided. Barnett was hesitant, at first, in front of the camera — asking photographer Tyler Matthew Oyer where to put her hands and whether she should smile.

But as the day went on and she traded a leather Fendi trench coat for a multicolored Loewe one, Barnett’s eyes started to light up differently. The rolling ladders meant to reach the highest hanging garments became her stage. Lingering hats and sunglasses became impromptu props. She began to lean into her carefully curated emporium as the vivacious backdrop it is.

It also helped that Barnett was in the hands of those she trusted. Erik Ziemba, who’s been coming to Palace Costume for the last decade, styled the shoot. He calls the space “the ultimate glam dress-up room” and mentions the whispers he hears of major fashion houses stopping by Palace to gather inspiration.

“It’s the fashion library,” Ziemba says. “People [like Barnett and her business partner, Lee Ramstead], who really understand periods, silhouettes and fabrics, are true fashion historians and it’s extremely important that these people who are so well-versed in knowledge and costuming are involved in the process.”

Palace covers everything people have worn over 125 years and the collection continues to grow.

“I keep it up to date every year,” Barnett says. “It doesn’t have to be vintage. I have a whole section that dates from 2001 to 2025. I’m not stopping anytime soon. Sometimes it’s even easier to collect when people are still wearing it instead of waiting and it gets more expensive.”

Barnett credits her large family with helping her build out the stock, specifically the children’s section. As she walks between the floor-to-ceiling clothing racks, she points out her high school graduation dress (a strappy, red and white polka dot sundress), old coveralls she used to wear and some of her son’s clothing.

Every time Shelley Barnett, Melody’s daughter, comes to Palace, she’s taken back to her childhood. From a young age, she remembers her mother and grandmother both having “incredible senses of style.” They would often all dig through estate sales and antique stores, with Shelley helping pick out which vintage clothes to purchase. Nowadays, she gravitates most toward the children’s section, where her baby clothes and old Halloween costumes are available to rent.

“My mom is such a passionate person. Being able to watch her just build this business through the years and have it be what she loves means so much,” says Shelley, 56, who lives on a ranch in Wildomar where she boards horses. “We all look up to her so much. She’s very family-oriented — she’d never miss a party. But when she’s at Palace, she runs circles around us all. She doesn’t stop. That’s her element.”

Carousel horses and toy planes fill the children’s floor airspace. Each staircase is a maximalist’s dream as almost every inch of the wall is lined with displayed garments, framed memorabilia and an illustrated edition of “The Timeline of World Costume.” Inside of her Hawaii room, where Barnett boasts having some of the first-ever rayon Hawaiian shirts, there’s even a closet stockpiled with tiki souvenirs, photos of Elvis Presley and decorative masks.

“My whole focus is being eclectic. I like mixing things. I don’t want just one set look. I want to combine it,” says Barnett. “My mother and grandmother were more classic than I am. I’ve always been an eccentric person.”

Her favorite pieces are the ones she’s sourced from all over the world. As she flips through the racks, she remarks about a past romantic partner she traveled with and how most of these pieces will “never be made ever again.” Though her collection delves into the luxury end of fashion — with archival Moschino and Yves Saint Laurent at her fingertips — she says, “I don’t base anything off what it’s worth.”

She brings over a beaded, floral skirt she got as a teenager from Mexico in the 1950s. Next, she pulls down some of her favorite Eastern European dresses, with traditional embroidery, from countries such as Hungary and Poland. She also points out her extensive African section, which features heavy, hand-beaded neckpieces and Kente cloth dresses — some of which were worn in “Black Panther.”

Her grandmother, who ignited the family’s collector gene, had an array of antique Tiffany lamps and sophisticated coats, and ran a clothing shop of her own. Meanwhile, Barnett’s mother made her children’s clothes and worked in a military shop, where Barnett first found a love for thrifting.

The Palace Costume collection began sometime in her late 20s. She was living in Laguna Beach when she stumbled upon a box of Victorian dresses at a local swap meet. At the time, her neighbor Robert Becker owned an antique store in L.A. and had told Barnett that people in the city “were just beginning to sell vintage clothing.”

“We got into vintage, right when it began to be a big thing,” says Barnett, who shares that at the time, people weren’t looking to the past for inspiration just yet. The duo then set off to create one of the first vintage stores on Melrose Avenue, called the Crystal Palace, which stood where the Pacific Design Center does today.

Before settling into the current Fairfax storefront, they sold vintage at a few other locations on Melrose. Fortuitously, one of the spots was across the street from Wolfgang Puck’s career-launching restaurant, Ma Maison. With Barnett’s extravagant window displays, she lured the dining crowd over and began to build a celebrity clientele from there.

As costume designers made their rounds, shopping for period pieces, they continually told Barnett that she should be renting instead of selling.

“I thought that was a good idea. During filming, you aren’t wearing it every day. It’s just for a certain scene. I figured we could help restore and maintain the collection,” says Barnett. Then, in the late ‘70s, she bought the Fairfax location, and Ramstead, a fellow antiquarian, offered to help run the business.

To this day, Ramstead prides himself on doing everything and knowing everyone in the business. Commanding the front desk with a long, swinging ponytail and a belt buckle which reads “Lee,” he juggles the ringing phone, points confused customers in the right direction and helps manage the inventory.

“I have watched it grow. Now we’re bursting at the seams out of here,” says Ramstead as he checks out a costume designer shopping for the upcoming season of “Abbott Elementary.” “I mean, I’m 73. I could retire if I didn’t like my job. But I feel very protective of this place. Somebody has to watch over it.”

Image’s fashion director at large, Keyla Marquez, considers Ramstead to be the gatekeeper of the priceless collection. Whenever anyone calls to make an appointment at Palace, they are greeted with a comprehensive list of questions: What’s the project? Who will wear the clothes? Who do you work with, and have you worked with Palace before?

“This place is just so special, and the clothes are so important. Not everyone respects clothes the way that these clothes should be respected,” says Marquez. “If someone pulls something and they ruin it or don’t return it, that’s it. It’s lost for all of us. No one has the ability to pull it anymore.”

On one of the compounded building’s top floors, Barnett lives a portion of her week in a tightly packed apartment space (she splits the remainder of her week living at her different SoCal properties, which she hopes to turn into event spaces). Across from her waterbed, she has a research library, complete with a swiveling ladder, full of fashion books. Her living room walls are lined with old-timey lace-up heels that she says were only ever worn by Bette Midler, as she was the only actor with feet small enough to wear them.

Though the area is designated as her private quarters, there’s not a clear separation between her work and her life. There are clothing racks, filled with leather jackets and neon bras, in the middle of the room. Boxes and bags with items to be sorted designate a clear walking path, and the extra bedrooms are deemed the lingerie section, which dates back to the Victorian era.

Lynn McQuown, an employee who has worked with Palace since 1992, thinks of the collection as a living work of art.

“It’s one person’s life’s work. She’s an artist, not a corporation. She’s built it up entirely from a box of Victorian clothes. She worked 20-hour days for decades and decades,” McQuown says.

And Barnett shows no signs of slowing down. Whenever she’s at the shop, she’ll settle into a spot that needs organizing and work through the items herself. She browses estate sales and swap meets in search of hidden gems. She’s still brainstorming ways on how to improve Palace and expand the collection. She dreams of repatterning some of her oldest, most fragile pieces and reproducing them, giving them a new life.

“My family will continue the business and continue to hire competent people to run it. I have no plans to quit, because I enjoy it. I love it, especially the acquisition part,” Barnett says. “I intend to work till I’m 100.”

It must be odd to have been a band’s co-founder and joint frontman and to know that when thousands of people came to see you, they did so on condition that not only did you play songs you neither wrote nor sung, but had also initially agreed not to perform. That was what happened to Rick Davies, who formed Supertramp with Roger Hodgson in 1970. Hodgson left the band in 1983 – on the agreement that he took his songs, and Davies took the name. But touring as Supertramp is impossible without The Logical Song or Dreamer or Breakfast in America, and so, to Hodgson’s irritation, Davies played the songs.

It was fitting though, because the tension between Davies and Hodgson was very much the driving force of Supertramp. Davies loved jazz and blues, whereas Hodgson was in love with pop. And it was in the combination of their two impulses that Supertramp found their greatest success. If you were to define a “Supertramp sound” it would be Hodgson’s keen tenor backed by Davies’ burbling keys: Hodgson may have written the band’s biggest hits, but Davies supplied their shape. And he had plenty of his own songs to sing.

And, notably, there was an issue of class. Hodgson was a newly minted private schoolboy, whereas Davies was the son of a hairdresser and a merchant seaman, and grew up in Swindon: his own schooldays were a struggle, bar music classes. His musical epiphany had come not with the Wurlitzer he became associated with, or with any keyboard: at the age of eight, in 1952, he heard Drummin’ Man by Gene Krupa and “it hit me like a thunderbolt”. By the end of the 50s, he was in a local rock’n’roll band; by 1962 he’d formed his own and switched to keyboards. After the usual struggle of the jobbing musician, he placed an ad in Melody Maker in August 1969 and met Hodgson. After a few fruitless months as the unfortunately named Daddy, they became Supertramp at the start of the new decade.

Supertramp were one of a number of British groups of the 70s who seemed to exist entirely on their own terms, never quite one thing or another, a little like 10cc: were they an arty pop band or a poppy art band? And like 10cc, whose roots were in the 60s beat boom, they had to find their way to this sound. Their first two albums were underformed and underwhelming prog; they only found their way in 1974’s Crime of the Century.

Supertramp didn’t seem remotely like a rock band. They weren’t pictured on their album covers. Their TV appearances were undramatic and interviews unremarkable: “Since their first success this group have rarely presented a strikingly interesting public image,” wrote NME’s Tony Stewart in 1977. That kind of unremarkable grown-upness became very unfashionable in the peacocking 80s.

Hodgson’s solo career didn’t thrive any more than Supertramp did after he left in 1983. He wanted to head for poppier pastures; Davies wanted the music to become thornier. For both, commercial success would be a thing of the past. It was Davies’ reclaiming of the old songs that caused public disagreement between the two, and after the reformed Supertramp played London’s O2 Arena in 2010, the absent Hodgson complained about it being advertised using his songs. That behaviour precluded any full reunion of the group, he said, though he added that he remained in touch with Davies and they often talked about working together again.

Beneath the glossy surface of Supertramp – the slickly syncopated pop that you could later hear in Scissor Sisters – was a strange and quirky group. Davies’ own songs could be funky and peculiar – Bloody Well Right, from Crime of the Century starts with a minute of bluesy vamping before Davies begins his sardonic narration in his gruff voice over crashing power chords, before a chorus that is halfway between the Supertramp sound and a disgruntled shopkeeper confronting an awful Monday morning.

Their strange snarkiness was very apparent on 1975’s Crisis? What Crisis?, an album that inadvertently helped changed the course of British politics, when its title was co-opted by a Sun subeditor to headline a piece about prime minister James Callaghan’s response to the mounting winter of discontent in 1978/79 on returning from a holiday.

Davies’s standout song on that album was Ain’t Nobody But Me, which personified much of his musical character within Supertramp – over a jaunty blues piano riff, resolving into a 50s ballad pastiche chorus, he sang of an appalling man being tied to someone even more appalling, so “ain’t nobody but me gonna lie for you”; Another Man’s Woman was equally misanthropic. Supertramp was not just a band of nerds making clever-clever rhymes.

The inability to settle, the unwillingness to be straightforward, meant Supertramp were left behind as times changed – it’s easy to forget now that they were one of the biggest bands in the world at the end of the 1970s. Without a convenient genre to bracket them in, they couldn’t be the pioneers or godfathers of anything.

With no legends of unruly behaviour to keep people talking, they became another footnote in pop history. Except, that is, to those who still loved them. Those who embraced the quirks and the perverse cross between squareness and esoterica. They were the people still filling arenas to see Rick Davies and Supertramp for the best part of 30 years after Hodgson left the band.

Knee-deep in water, the young man lifts his arms. His wrists are grabbed, next his ankles, then he feels himself flying through the air, nearly horizontal, before plunging into New England’s pungent tidal waters.

Grinning and still dripping, he receives a homemade certificate documenting his induction into the Needle in a Haystack Society.

“That was fun,” sighs Deirdre Robinson, a 75-year-old naturalist, after helping to toss the intern, Cooper White, into the water. The idea was hers: a fake club with joke rituals.

It is “a little bit of joy”, she says later, for the people who care enough to master an extremely difficult skill: finding hidden eggs laid by a tiny ground-nesting bird before the sea can swallow them.

It took a month of training before White identified his first saltmarsh sparrow nest. It was tiny, perched an inch above the dark mud, with a canopy of spartina grass intricately threaded over it. Standing waist-high in the emerald marsh grass that hugs Rhode Island’s coastline, White remembers the “adrenaline rush” he felt at finding it.

These are some of the best-hidden nests in the avian world, woven by one of North America’s most rapidly disappearing birds. And, despite White’s joyful baptism, there is little talk of salvation.

“It’s very likely by mid-century, the saltmarsh sparrow will be extinct,” Robinson says.

A new Guardian documentary, Between Moon Tides, follows Robinson and her dedicated interns over two summers at Jacob’s Point Preserve, a 15-hectare (37-acre) tidal salt marsh about 60 miles from Boston.

A ragtag crew of citizen scientists and researchers, they tinker with low-cost, homegrown solutions to save saltmarsh sparrow chicks from drowning during extreme high tides. They try, fail and tweak in their efforts to raise nests beyond the water’s reach.

A plastic coffee filter that costs $6 (£4.50) glued to foam pads proves to be a buoyant life raft for nests that would otherwise flood. There is elation when some of the contraptions, dubbed “arks”, begin to work, raising the grassy homes like a tiny elevator, going up and down with the tides.

The small team works under restrictive wildlife permits on a shoestring budget, raising 53 nests and tracking 97 untouched control nests. Not every nest that needs a lift along this shore will get one.

Painful timelapse videos show waters rising on hatchlings in nests that Robinson’s team have found but, ultimately, could not save from drowning.

Extreme tides, driven by rising sea levels, are flooding marshes across the east coast to new heights. Soaring populations of white-tailed deer are an additional threat. The deer are omnivorous and have been captured on trail cams snacking on saltmarsh sparrow eggs.

Saltmarsh sparrow numbers have fallen by 87% since 1998, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The population is shrinking so fast – by about 9% a year – that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species classified them as endangered in 2017.

Most experts doubt the species can survive beyond the mid-century. One team of scientists predicts that extinction could happen within 10 years.

But climate breakdown and deer did not start the sparrows’ problems. They simply fanned the flame.

No sugarcoating

Saltmarsh sparrows are a specialist species: they cannot nest anywhere but salt marshes.

Centuries ago – before European colonists dried, ditched and destroyed much of the United States’ salt marshes – the speckled birds with their signature orange caps built nests in the highest reaches of the marsh.

Proximity to water helped them avoid some predators, and their unique canopied nests allowed eggs, especially during the king tides – the very highest ones of the year – to float for a few hours while still being contained.

Historically, these nurseries only flooded twice a month: during new and full moons when tides are at their fullest.

In the early 1800s, as human settlements expanded, began filling in the high marsh began to be filled in, slowly pushing the sparrows to more low-lying areas or out of the marsh entirely. Two centuries of development destroyed half of Rhode Island’s original salt marshes and what is left is being pummelled by the effects of rising seas: increased salinity, more frequent flooding and longer-lasting storm surges. Eggs float away; fledglings slip beneath the water.

The arks are a last-ditch intervention to address a human-made problem, but are not without controversy.

By making sparrows more visible to predators, “lifting nests could cause harm”, says Prof Chris Elphick, a conservation biologist at the University of Connecticut. Female sparrows are also known to abandon nests if they perceive threats.

Elphick says you have to “balance the risks and benefits” of this kind of extreme intervention. But he sees a future, sometime after a population crash – which his lab predicts will happen in the next decade or so – where nest-raising may be beneficial in salvaging the species’ last individuals.

Robinson acknowledges that lifting nests is a “tough sell”. But unpublished findings from the group’s two-year experiment found that the arks worked: only 8% of artificially raised nests flooded during extreme tides compared with 18% of untouched nests. None of the raised nests were abandoned, and the contraptions did not appear to affect chicks being eaten by deer and other predators.

White, who is now a research assistant, is aware that the arks are not a long-term solution. Their preliminary success at Jacob’s Point has not changed his view that this species will probably become extinct in his lifetime.

“You have to be as realistic as possible because, if you sugarcoat it, people aren’t going to take [the bird’s extinction] as seriously as it actually is,” says White.

Waiting for protection

Despite the fact that they are classified as endangered internationally, saltmarsh sparrows are not yet listed as such under US law. Federal officials have been reviewing the species’ case for years. If listed, it would be a boon for the birds, but experts are not holding their breath.

Elphick says: “We expected a decision back in 2019. We’re still waiting.”

In the US, endangered species are afforded the highest level of protection. For saltmarsh sparrows, it would mean encroaching coastal developments or plans to build docks could be scuttled.

In South Carolina, for example, work on an 18,000-home development next to a pristine salt marsh has been frozen since 2023, after scientists found endangered bats were living in a nearby national forest.

Being listed as endangered unlocks funding, too – sometimes millions of dollars – to support habitat restoration or improve scientific monitoring. In 2020, the US government spent $871,000 on conservation efforts for the endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow, endemic to Florida, while more than $7m went on helping the red-cockaded woodpecker.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service was due to make a decision on the endangered status of the saltmarsh sparrow by the end of 2024, according to its website. An agency spokesperson refused to provide a revised timeline. “While we do set targets for when we think listing determinations will be made, we also re-evaluate and adjust the targets,” the US Fish and Wildlife Service said via email.

Experts believe it is likely that the saltmarsh sparrows will be listed as endangered only after it is too late for them to recover. One study found that, between 2000 and 2009, the average wait for declining species to be classified as endangered was about nine years.

From 2010 to 2020, decision-making sped up, with species waiting an average of three years. Under the Trump administration, experts expect another slowdown.

Like patients bleeding to death in a hospital waiting room, hundreds of species such as the saltmarsh sparrow sit in the classification queue, leaving researchers resorting to cheap remedies such as the $6 nest-lifting devices.

Robinson, who has been researching the sparrows at Jacob’s Point for nearly a decade, describes her role as like providing hospice care. “I see myself playing the role of bearing witness,” she says.

While the ark experiment may give the impression that Robinson believes she can turn the tide for saltmarsh sparrows, she has in fact made peace with their probable extinction. For her, the team’s experiments brought “fun” and “smiles” and, for dozens of nests, temporary relief from the harms of the climate crisis.

“​​Don’t ever underestimate what a small, thoughtful, dedicated group of citizens can do to change the world. In fact, that’s the only thing that ever has,” says Robinson, loosely quoting the anthropologist Margaret Meade.

Perhaps all that sparrow tracking and ark-building was not ultimately for the birds alone. Reflecting on the 10-year project, Robinson says: “I find myself comparing the importance of sharing our [scientific] findings … with the value of fledging young scientists-to-be. It is hard to assign a value to these efforts, but at least we showed up for all of it.”

There are still about 20,000 salt marsh sparrows left globally, according to Elphick. And, last month, his research group published some good news: the species’ annual rate of decline has slowed – for now.

White, now 21 and in his final year studying wildlife biology at the University of New Hampshire, says: “Even if the sparrow does go extinct eventually, this work sets the baseline for things that can be done about it.

“And things can change for other birds.”

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage