Editor-in-chief of fashion magazine responds to online accusations of whitewashing and disrespecting the vice-president-elect
Anna Wintour has spoken about the controversy over Vogue’s Kamala Harris cover, accused online of whitewashing and disrespecting the vice-president-elect.
Related: Kamala Harris and why politicians can’t resist Vogue (though it always ends in tears)
Continue reading...What is it like to live in a time machine? Five people explain why they made their home into the perfect replica of an earlier era
Will future generations look at the interior design of the early 21st century in appreciation? Possibly not. We do not appear to have crafted many design classics, unless slab-like corner sofas in mud-grey velvet are Eames chairs in the making. Our feature walls are gaudy; our furniture cheaply made. Scarcely anything seems to be built to last, which is just as well, as the next Instagram-led interior design trend will be along soon enough.
But there are those who retreat from modern trends into the interiors of the past, drawn by the allure of original designs. We speak to five people whose homes are portals into the past.
Continue reading...The latest row over a high-fashion magazine cover, involving the US vice-president-elect, illustrates the chaos than can ensue when alpha worlds collide
When Theresa May appeared in US Vogue in 2017, even her deliberately anodyne choice of a posh-end-of-the-high-street dress by British label LK Bennett did not prevent this newspaper calling the Annie Leibovitz shoot a “defining moment” which, “like Margaret Thatcher in the tank turret looking like a cross between Boudicca and Lawrence of Arabia … might easily become a signifier of all that is flawed in her prime ministerial style”. Michelle Obama’s bare upper arms appeared no fewer than three times on the cover of Vogue during her White House years, causing pearl-clutching uproar at the sight of her toned triceps.
Continue reading...First woman of color elected vice-president is February cover star but users complain about lighting
Vogue magazine became embroiled in a “whitewashing” controversy on Sunday when it tweeted photographs of its February cover star, Kamala Harris.
Continue reading...Cheap, hygienic and sustainable, the mattresses made by Indian fashion designer Lakshmi Menon also generate income for rural women
At the height of the pandemic in the Indian state of Kerala, fashion designer Lakshmi Menon, 46, heard that every new Covid care centre had to have 50 beds. Mattresses were in short supply. Every time a patient was discharged, the mattress had to be incinerated. “I thought: that’s a lot of mattresses and a lot of burning,” says Menon.
Menon’s solution was to collect the mountains of plastic pieces from factories that make PPE – all the little bits left over after cutting. Women then braid the bits into rope-like plaits 6ft long. The braids are laid out in a zigzag and the ends tied together. The result is a light, soft, washable, hygienic mattress for just 300 rupees (£3) – half the price of a normal one.
Continue reading...Adut Akech’s rise from Kenyan refugee camp to the international catwalk has been remarkable. She talks about her ‘fashion dad’ Edward Enninful and why she wants to see proper diversity in the fashion industry
All the best supermodels have fairytale origin stories. They are bullied at school: too tall, too flat-chested, too strange-looking. Boys prefer their more comely peers. They grow up believing themselves to be unlovable, even social outcasts. And then an outsider swoops in – perhaps at an airport (Kate Moss), in Primark (Jourdan Dunn), or McDonald’s (Gisele Bündchen). The scout plucks them from obscurity and drops them into a life of international travel, money and acclaim. Their self-doubt is sloughed away like dead skin. Bullies stand chastened. The supermodel triumphs.
Moss and co don’t have anything on Adut Akech’s origin story. Their childhoods are the Pixar remakes of her Grimms’ fairytale. Akech was born as her mother fled civil war in South Sudan and raised in a refugee camp in Kenya. At seven, she moved with her family to Australia. When she arrived, she didn’t speak any English, “I was this tall, super-shy, awkward kid,” she says. “I had a weird name, and a gap tooth.”
Continue reading...More claims emerge on social media after British model says fashion designer groped him at party
The American fashion designer Alexander Wang has denied “grotesquely false” allegations of sexual assault as grassroots advocacy sites claim that there are a high number of victims.
A British model, Owen Mooney, this week publicly claimed that Wang had groped his crotch during a party at the nightclub Slake in New York in January 2017, following which a number of similar claims, mostly anonymous, emerged.
Continue reading...Fashion designer will forever be associated with the decade that embraced his space-age aesthetic
The Beatles smiling for an early group portrait in 1963, their pixie handsomeness perfectly framed by four snappy collarless jackets. US first lady, Jackie Kennedy, unimpeachably elegant in a boxy scarlet wool day-suit on a visit to Canada in 1962. Marisa Berenson in a groovy sunset-hued kaftan, gazing through matchstick lashes at the lens of Irving Penn for a 1967 cover of Vogue.
Continue reading...No one in fashion could guess what would succeed the smiling, buoyant healthfulness of the international supermodels who commanded catwalks and covers in the late 1980s and early 90s. The unexpected next big things turned out to be very particularly British: bad-waif Kate Moss, and cool aristo Stella Tennant, who arrived on the pages of British Vogue in 1993. She has died suddenly, shortly after her 50th birthday.
Tennant’s appeal had been prefigured in the release that year of Sally Potter’s film of the Virginia Woolf fantasy novel Orlando, its hero/heroine (nothing so simple as androgynous) played by Tilda Swinton; pipe-cleaner thin, tall, pale, unpainted, with a body language both male and female, and an ever-unready smile. Totally Tennant.
Continue reading...Family announce ‘sudden death’ and ask for privacy
The model Stella Tennant has died, five days after her 50th birthday on 17 December. According to police, there were no suspicious circumstances around her death.
Her family said in a statement: “It is with great sadness we announce the sudden death of Stella Tennant on 22 December 2020.
Continue reading...Fashion designer’s scheme provides secondhand shoes, clothes and jewellery free to women who can’t pay for their big day
A section of a boutique in Pappinisseri town in Kerala’s Kannur district brims over with colourful bridal lehengas, saris, gowns and shiny salwar suits.
An exuberance of fabrics adorns mannequins that stand next to tables spread with sparkly sandals, shoes, bangles and beaded bags. Tableware, bedlinen and miscellaneous items are scattered in other spaces.
Continue reading...Since the killing of George Floyd, the industry has attempted to tackle racism, but has it gone far enough?
This month, fashion’s unofficial watchdog, Diet Prada, posted a “how it started versus how it’s going” meme on Instagram. Contrasting a past moment of hope with a current moment of reckoning, Diet Prada turned its attention to the US clothing and homeware store Anthropologie.
The first picture was a screengrab from the brand’s official Instagram account, showing a pledge to diversify its workforce, written after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the spring. A second screengrab showed the lineup for a series of Christmas virtual workshops – styling sessions, baking demonstrations and candle-making sessions run by blond, white women.
Continue reading...‘Conscious’, ‘slow’ or ‘cruelty-free’ may sound appealing but these surface-level claims could just be a distraction
’Tis the season to buy stuff you don’t need that trashes the planet. ’Twas ever thus. At least ever since Queen Victoria decided Christmas was about having a giant tree in the house bedecked with ornaments and gifts. Or New York’s elites decided to bring the season’s festive street parties inside and formalise the fun with status-signifying trinkets.
Related: The good gift guide: 100 Christmas gift ideas to lift up, give back and delight
Continue reading...Kurt Markus began his career shooting cowboys in Montana. A new exhibition shows how he trained his lens on boxers, fashion models and nudes, too
Continue reading...What did you do in lockdown? Make banana bread? Do yoga? What if you decided to try your hand at homemade tattoos?
I have a little tattoo of a cross on my right hip. It is horrible. It is small and fat, like someone made a cross out of clay then squashed it. It leans to the right for no particular reason, like a terrible tribute to the tower of Pisa. I am very fond of it, because the story behind it is incredibly stupid.
I was 18 and cool-adjacent – just about enough of my acquaintances were cool that I could hang out in “cool” social circles, but deep down I knew I was only cool by association, which pained me greatly. My housemate and I had been invited to a squat party in south London by this woman, Cat, who was definitely cool.
Continue reading...The fallen tycoon leaves behind a mountain of debt, much of it owed to exploited people in Asia earning as little as £4 a day
The collapse of Arcadia in the lead-up to Christmas, and with it the demise of Sir Philip Green’s controversial reign over the UK high street, has a Dickensian feel to it. Over the years, Green has embodied the role of billionaire boss, brazenly handing his wife a tax-free £1.2bn dividend in 2005 (four times the actual annual profits made by the company), while relaxing on his luxury yacht in Monaco. He has rarely showed concern for the workers propping up his empire.
The stark prospect of 13,000 workers losing their jobs and an estimated £350m pensions deficit during a global pandemic is more than enough to constitute the bleak reality of Christmas present, and Arcadia’s collapse will send further shockwaves throughout the fashion industry. Already, news has emerged that Debenhams faces liquidation as JD Sports pulled out of rescue talks, a knock-on effect following the closure of Arcadia’s concession outlets in the department retailer.
Continue reading...The French fashion house took a team of 300 to a Loire castle for a blowout event this week, despite the pandemic preventing anyone from attending
How important is a catwalk show to a fashion house? Important enough, in the case of Chanel, to take a team of 300 – including the actor Kristen Stewart, the photographer Juergen Teller and a small army of models – to put on a show in one of the most magnificent chateaux in France, despite an audience capped at zero.
Chanel had hoped to welcome 200 guests to admire chic black-velvet coats, rich damask gowns with lace collars and double-ply cashmere embroidered with double-C logos on a promenade across Chateau de Chenonceau’s 60-metre ballroom, which spans the River Cher. This proved impossible, but – in contrast to May, when a planned show in Capri was replaced by a digital-only presentation – Chanel chose to go ahead with the Métiers d’Art event on Tuesday, even though it was viewed only online.
“The show is just the same as it would have been, but without an audience,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion. “We don’t see any other way to talk about the collections, other than having a show. We need to have impactful events to maintain a strong bond with our audience.”
Workers are being forced into debt and facing food shortages as suppliers to western fashion brands cut wages and close factories
The catastrophic fallout of the fashion industry’s decision to cancel billions of pounds of clothing orders at the start of the pandemic has left garment workers across the world facing chronic food shortages as wages plunge and factories close.
Interviews with nearly 400 garment workers in Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Lesotho, Haiti, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Cambodia and Bangladesh conducted by human rights group Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), found that almost 80% of workers, many making clothes for some of the world’s largest fashion brands, are going hungry. Almost a quarter of those surveyed said that they were facing daily food shortages.
Continue reading...Portraits of presidents’ wives have evolved with the role, and although it remains highly gendered, a new exhibition aims to celebrate their contribution and to ‘rectify the absences of women in US history’
Bess Truman, US first lady from 1945 until 1953, has not become the sort of historical figure people quote on Instagram. “A woman’s public role is to sit beside her husband, be silent, and be sure her hat is on straight,” she said, even though, behind the scenes, she was nicknamed “the Boss” and wrote many of President Truman’s speeches.
Continue reading...With its celebrity collaborations and turbo-charged launches, Philip Green’s Topshop brought fun and drama to the once uninspiring business of clothes-shopping. We chart the rise and fall of the pandemic’s most glamorous corporate victim
“What’s this I’m reading in the paper? It’s a load of absolute shit, that’s what it is. What’s the matter with you? Are you stupid or what? I’ve never read so much rubbish in my life.”
It was February 2010, and I was at my desk in the Guardian office. Philip Green didn’t need to introduce himself. His habit of bellowing down the phone was unmistakable, and I had just written an article about how I was falling out of love with Topshop after a decade being in thrall to its shop floor. Green never did take kindly to criticism of the golden child of his Arcadia empire.
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