Category Archives: Life and style

Superdry returns to profit despite talks on £70m debt pile

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Founder Julian Dunkerton says being ‘cool again’ with TikTok generation helped turn previous £37m loss into £18m profit

Superdry is in talks with its banks to renegotiate up to £70m debt, the fashion retailer revealed on Friday, but investors shrugged off concerns to send shares soaring more than 14% as founder Julian Dunkerton announced a return to profit.

Dunkerton claimed Superdry “was cool again”, with strong demand from the TikTok generation for items such as parachute pants and Afghan coats, as he revealed pre tax profits of £18m, a bounce back from a loss of almost £37m a year before as sales rose almost 10% to £610m in the year to 30 April.

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Issey Miyake and Off White celebrate late founders at Paris fashion week

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Parentless labels reveal collections, with Miyake’s fluid inventions repurposed for 2023

What happens to a fashion house after its founder dies? If you’re Issey Miyake and Off White, two labels made parentless in the past 12 months, you carry on making collections in their name while peering through the sartorial looking-glass as you figure out what to do next.

Closing was never an option for Issey Miyake. The first Japanese designer to crack Paris fashion week, Miyake’s name was already a byword for cutting-edge style and Steve Jobs polo necks when he died in August aged 84. Miyake had not designed at his label since 2020 (Satoshi Kondo is the current creative director) but his fingerprints have always been all over the label’s collections.

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‘Chicken or chicken?’ Qantas ditches vegetarian meals on some domestic flights

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Airline says it changed menu during Covid but critics say ‘one size fits all’ alienates passengers and is a sign of decline

Qantas has stopped offering vegetarian meals on some domestic flights, leaving one irate traveller to suggest it is a further sign that the airline is in decline.

Environmentalist Jon Dee was flying from Adelaide to Sydney on Sunday night when he was told there was only chicken pie on the menu.

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‘It felt important to keep going’: grief hands London fashion week a dilemma

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Whether to pay homage to the Queen amid the party dresses has divided participants

There was only one show in town in London this weekend, and that was the Queue. But the catwalks of London fashion week soldiered on.

“It felt important to keep going, because this is a time when London needs to stick together, and right now some of this city’s young designers are at risk of losing their businesses,” said the designer Jonathan Anderson after his JW Anderson show.

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Luis Vuitton reduces thermostat and light use in shops to save energy

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LVMH announced measures after Emmanuel Macron urged France to reduce power consumption

LVMH, the owner of Louis Vuitton, plans to lower the thermostat at its stores around the world as part energy-saving measures this winter.

The French conglomerate will also turn off the lights at its stores earlier, starting in France in October before being deployed worldwide.

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Kate Moss taps into wellness boom with journey into Cosmoss

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Supermodel joins list of celebrities delving into lucrative wellness business with products that ‘help find inner peace’

Once nicknamed “the tank” for her ability to guzzle champagne, the original 90s It model Kate Moss has swapped partying for dawn meditation and night-time tisanes.

On Thursday, Moss has launched her own wellness brand, Cosmoss, featuring six products including vegan skincare and mood-boosting teas, ranging from £20 for a canister of Dawn Tea to £120 for a Sacred Mist fragrance. “A story of reconnection from soul to surface. There is a magic to Cosmoss and I can’t wait for you all to uncover it, just as I did,” reads a statement in a press release.

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Cosmetic surgery in Australia to be monitored by enforcement unit to improve patient safety

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Medical regulator and board agree to strengthen industry standards after review revealed unsafe practices and misleading advertising

Cosmetic surgery practitioners will be policed by a dedicated enforcement unit for the first time in Australia as part of an industry-wide crackdown by the national regulator.

The $1bn industry will undergo significant reform after an independent review highlighted cases of misconduct.

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T-minus 10: Statistician writes formula to predict kids’ backseat tantrums

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The chances of breakdowns are mitigated with food, but increased with the addition of siblings

Long traffic jams, bickering siblings, extreme boredom – most parents will know the signs to look out for when trying to prevent a full-blown backseat temper tantrum on a family holiday.

Now a statistician has calculated the exact formula for predicting the chances, and timing, of children throwing a tantrum in the back of a car during a long journey.

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Covid lockdown boredom inspires New Zealand teenager to build world-record 25-metre Lego train

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Alexander Blong smashed the previous world record for the most carriages in a Lego train

A New Zealand teenager has broken a Guinness World Record for the most carriages in a Lego toy train, beating the previous record by 32 carriages, after he was inspired to break a record during boring Covid lockdowns.

It took 14-year-old Aucklander Alexander Blong roughly 50 hours to build the 101-carriage locomotive. When finished, it measured 25 metres long.

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The 23-year-old fashion designer dressing Colombia’s first black female vice-president

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When Francia Márquez became the South American country’s VP elect, she chose the unknown Esteban Sinisterra Paz to create her outfits

Esteban Sinisterra Paz, a 23-year-old fashion designer from Colombia’s conflict-ridden and impoverished Pacific region, had not long started his career when he received a call from a history-making client.

Francia Márquez – the renowned environmental activist and Colombia’s first black female vice-president-elect – was on the line, and she wanted two outfits made.

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Visits to shopping centres and high streets dip below pre-pandemic levels

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South of England experiencing faster recovery than north, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Visits to high streets and shopping centres dipped to below pre-pandemic levels last month, with the north of England – plus Scotland and Northern Ireland – trailing behind the south in terms of the overall recovery from Covid-fuelled gloom.

Footfall decreased by 14% in July compared with 2019, reversing gains made in April, as retailers struggled to entice shoppers amid a heatwave in the third week of the month and surging inflation.

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Blooming Essex garden points to future of horticulture in a heating UK

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RHS Hyde Hall has made a virtue of its position in the driest county in England by embracing adaptable plants

It has not been artificially watered for 22 years, yet this garden, on an exposed slope in Essex, the driest county in the UK, is bursting with bloom.

A dry bed at the Royal Horticultural Society Hyde Hall dominated by cool greys and pale greens, and full of Mediterranean, Australian and African shrubs and flowers, could this be the future British garden?

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Tamara Ecclestone offers £6m reward for recovery of stolen jewels

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Cash and gems worth £25m were stolen from her Kensington mansion in 2019

Tamara Ecclestone, the daughter of ex-Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone, has offered a reward of up to £6m for information that may lead to the recovery of some of her “most precious” belongings stolen in 2019.

The 38-year-old was on holiday in Lapland with her husband, their daughter and their dog, when the £25m jewel heist occurred in their 57-room Kensington mansion, on 13 December 2019.

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‘Park in sky’ to open in former Grade II-listed Manchester viaduct

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National Trust garden at Castlefield Viaduct is inspired by New York public park and features 3,000 plant species

A “park in the sky” at a former viaduct in Manchester is to open at the end of the month, the National Trust has announced.

Situated along the Grade II-listed Castlefield Viaduct, the 330-metre temporary park is inspired by New York’s High Line public park, and features 3,000 plant species in gardens created by architects and community groups.

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Skin cancer death rates for men in UK have tripled since 1970s

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Men 69% more likely to die from melanoma than women, says Cancer Research UK, warning that lack of sun protection is a factor

Skin cancer death rates among men have more than tripled since the 1970s, research reveals, prompting fresh warnings from experts to stay safe in the sun.

Since 1973, death rates from melanoma – the deadliest form of skin cancer – have increased by 219% in men, compared with the rise of 76% in women, Cancer Research UK found. As many as 1,400 men are now dying from the disease each year, in contrast to 980 women. This amounts to a total of six people a day, the charity said.

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Florence Pugh hits back at ‘vulgar’ criticism of her body on social media

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Black Widow actor rails at ‘how easy it is for men to totally destroy a woman’s body, publicly, proudly, for everyone to see’

Florence Pugh has hit back at “vulgar” social media users who criticised her body, after she posted photographs of herself wearing a sheer dress at a fashion show.

“What happened to you to be so content on being so loudly upset by the size of my boobs and body?” said Pugh in an Instagram post on Sunday to her 7.4 million followers.

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‘It’s a crisis’: US summer pools closed or cut back amid lifeguard shortage

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Officials say not enough lifeguards to open pools safely but critics say decision to cut services during Covid has had knock-on effect

A nationwide shortage of lifeguards is forcing local pools across the US to close for the summer, according to reports.

In major cities such as New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and elsewhere, public pools are reducing their hours of operation, or shutting down entirely amid an apparent shortage of lifeguards.

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Sierra Leone backs bill to legalise abortion and end colonial-era law

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Country hails ‘monumental step’ towards expanding reproductive rights at a time when the US has overturned them

Ministers in Sierra Leone have taken a major step towards decriminalising abortion and overturning the country’s colonial-era law, in a move hailed by campaigners and women’s rights activists.

President Julius Maada Bio said his cabinet had unanimously backed a bill on risk-free motherhood, which would expand access to abortion in a country where terminations are only permitted when a mother’s life is at risk.

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V&A to display its first African fashion exhibition

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Galleries will showcase designers who are often overlooked, in an effort to acknowledge colonial histories within the museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum will open its first African fashion exhibition this week, more than 170 years after it was founded.

Featuring designers who have worked with names including Beyoncé and architect David Adjaye, Africa Fashion aims to look across the fashion of the continent, exhibiting designs, photographs and films from 25 of the 54 countries.

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