Over four decades the late German fashion photographer collaborated with many of the biggest names in the industry, from Kate Moss to Naomi Campbell
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Is it OK to shout at strangers who aren’t social distancing? Absolutely | Hadley Freeman
My favourite video right now shows a variety of Italian mayors telling off their citizens in no uncertain terms – and it is exactly the approach we need here
Is it acceptable to shout at people – not just friends and family, but also strangers – for not practising social distancing?
Martin, London
Status update on me: I am spending every day, all day, inside my home with three children under five and a deranged, underwalked terrier who barks incessantly at his own reflection in the window. Am I lucky? You bet: I have a home and, so far, everyone has their health. But does my life also resemble a Channel 5 reality TV show? Maybe just a touch.
Continue reading...Parr’s makeup ad for Gucci has a brush with controversy
The shoot, featuring musician Dani Miller in mascara, has reignited debate about realistic standards of beauty
One is famed for warts-and-all realism, the other for high-end gloss, so there was always going to be something spectacular in the offing when British photographer Martin Parr was asked to shoot a make-up advertising campaign for the Italian fashion house Gucci.
The imagery – for the brand’s new L’Obscur mascara – features New York punk musician Dani Miller and her now-famous gap-toothed smile. With lashings of heavy black mascara, natural eyebrows (complete with, shock horror, regrowth), and minimal foundation, it has divided customers and started yet another debate about diversity, even in these times of increased body positivity.
Continue reading...‘Some soles last 1,000 years in landfill’: the truth about the sneaker mountain
As trainer consumption booms, so does the number of unwanted shoes. Can anything be done with them?
Sneaker Con is an aircraft-hangar-sized convention that smells worse and worse as the day goes on. I am at the London edition of the event, but it’s just been in Las Vegas, and is soon due to be in Berlin, then New York. Thousands of sneakerheads have paid the £25 entry fee and are browsing merchandise stalls piled high with sneakers. The price tags on these shoes are not for the faint-hearted: £550, £600, £700.
The attendees are approximately 95% male. Of the women here, many are the mothers of young boys. One of the few women not chaperoning a child is Helen. She lives in a rented three-bedroom house on the outskirts of London with her husband, Luke, and his collection of trainers. The shoes have filled up the loft and the spare room. When they began to invade her bedroom, Helen told Luke she needed some space. The couple booked a table at Sneaker Con, where their stall is piled with trainers which cumulatively cost tens of thousands of pounds. This expense has become a source of tension. “That’s why he had to stop,” Helen tells me. “Some are quick-strike releases: we’d be on a night out and have to pull over on the motorway to follow a Twitter link to get a pair of trainers.”
Continue reading...Garment workers face destitution as Covid-19 closes factories
Campaigners call for fashion brands to protect workers in their supply chains globally as coronavirus causes orders to dry up
The fashion industry is facing calls to step in and protect the wages of the 40 million garment workers in their supply chains around the world who face destitution as factories close and orders dry up in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Many factories in garment-producing countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam are already closing due to a shortage of raw materials from China and declining orders from western clothing brands.
Continue reading...‘Hip, rebellious, even a bit sinister’: how Andy Warhol made pop art fashion
As the Tate Modern prepares to open its new exhibition, a menswear expert – and Warhol superfan – explains why the artist continues to impact on personal style
• Read more from the spring/summer 2020 edition of The Fashion, our biannual style supplement
“Artists aren’t supposed to dress up and I’ll never look right anyway,” Andy Warhol utters in Bob Colacello’s fantastic biographical Holy Terror book. It’s ironic, given that when anyone talks about men having a sartorial uniform, I always think of Warhol. Specifically, the blazer, shirt, tie and jeans era. He often also had a plastic carrier bag in hand, with copies of his magazine Interview inside to give out to potential advertisers. Warhol was never not working. He was his art.
Warhol’s dedication to jeans is also something of a personal obsession; I recently bought three pairs of vintage Levi’s – his favourite denim brand. Arguably, one of the best denim-related stories is of Warhol keeping his Levi’s 501s on under his tuxedo suit – he was going to the White House for the first time – because the trousers were itchy. Then there is the picture of him skating in jeans and a blazer, or a roll neck with New Balance trainers, Basquiat in the foreground, topless and weight-training.
Continue reading...Victoria’s Secret under fire after store dumps hundreds of bras in bin
Discovery draws criticism from those who say fashion industry generates too much waste
Hundreds of Victoria’s Secret bras have reportedly been found discarded in a bin close to a recently closed branch of the lingerie store in Colorado.
The discovery comes at a time when the fashion industry is under fire for generating significant levels of waste, while Victoria’s Secret continues to face criticism regarding recent controversies.
Continue reading...Rose McGowan: Natalie Portman’s Oscars dress protest ‘deeply offensive’
McGowan posts Facebook attack on Portman, who wore a gown embroidered with names of female directors snubbed at awards
Activist and actor Rose McGowan has labelled Natalie Portman a “fraud” for wearing a dress to the Oscars embroidered with the names of female film-makers including Greta Gerwig and Lulu Wang who were passed over for best director nominations.
In a post on Facebook, McGowan said Portman had made “the kind of protest that gets rave reviews from the mainstream media” but was “more like an actress acting the part of someone who cares. As so many of them do.”
Continue reading...Oscars 2020: Brad Pitt wins best supporting actor – live!
Follow all the action from Hollywood as we find out who’s wearing what, who’s winning what and whose acceptance speech is dropping jaws
• Oscars tonight: predictions, timetable and all you need to know
• ‘Brad Pitt tells us he’s single’: play Oscars bingo!
Now for best animated feature. Beanie Feldstein just introduced Mindy Kaling. Is that how this is going to work without a host? A person announces a person who announces a winner? That seems like at least one step too many.
We already have a news story about Brad Pitt winning. Not that anyone was expecting it or anything.
Continue reading...All it takes for a woman to be reduced to an object is too much eyeliner | Arwa Mahdawi
A new study finds women who wear heavy makeup are perceived as less competent. Perhaps it’s time to make our own rules
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Continue reading...Diamond as big as a tennis ball makes Louis Vuitton debut in Paris
1,758-carat Sewelô snapped up by luxury brand is world’s second-largest rough diamond
Louis Vuitton has made a splash as it showed off its latest purchase: the world’s second-largest rough diamond.
The LVMH-owned brand, which announced last week that it was the new owner of the 1,758-carat Sewelô, displayed the glinting, blackened stone at its Place Vendôme store in Paris.
Continue reading...Jean-Paul Gaultier bows out as fashion designer after 50 years
Gaultier says his high-end fashion and perfume business will continue along with a new concept as yet to be revealed
The renowned designer Jean-Paul Gaultier is bowing out from creating clothes after a 50-year career, he has said. But he has told fans not to worry, because he will be turning his hand to other creative projects.
Related: Jean Paul Gaultier, challenging those who churn out fast fashion | Rebecca Nicholson
Continue reading...Prada works commuter chic at Milan men’s fashion week
A surreal take on tailoring echoed masculine workwear themes seen elsewhere
On the third day of Milan men’s fashion week, the concept of the working man emerged as a theme in the newest collection from Prada.
The brand, which skipped Milan last season to show instead in Shanghai, showcased a collection which focused on formality and tailoring but with Miuccia Prada’s surreal touches. On a set that was designed to replicate a futuristic town square (a white statue of a man on a horse stood in the centre of the box-like runway), models replicated Prada-ised commuters on their way to work.
Continue reading...Vogue Italia drops photoshoots from January issue in green statement
Illustrated covers intended to highlight environmental impact of shoots
Vogue Italia will not feature any photoshoots in its January 2020 issue in a bid to make a statement about sustainability. The move is intended to highlight the environmental impact of photoshoots in print magazines.
In his editor’s letter, Emanuele Farneti listed some of the resources it took to fill the September 2019 issue, the biggest of the year, with original photographs: “One hundred and fifty people involved. About 20 flights and a dozen or so train journeys. Forty cars on standby. Sixty international deliveries. Lights switched on for at least ten hours nonstop, partly powered by gasoline-fuelled generators. Food waste from the catering services. Plastic to wrap the garments. Electricity to recharge phones, cameras … ”
Continue reading...French fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro dies aged 86
Alongside Yves Saint Laurent, Ungaro is seen as having helped establish ready-to-wear as an alternative to couture
Emanuel Ungaro, the French fashion designer who described himself as a sensual obsessive, has died in Paris at the age of 86.
Ungaro was a giant of old-school fashion, once memorably declaring: “One should not wear a dress, one should live in it.”
Continue reading...‘A very nice guy’: how Godfrey Gao made it to the top
The late film star was a trailblazer for diversity in fashion and film. His loss deprives the growing Chinese entertainment industry of a fine talent
Taiwanese-Canadian actor Godfrey Gao was famous for being the first Asian international supermodel but he was much more than just a pretty face – he had a reputation for being one of the friendliest stars in an intensely competitive industry.
“He was known for being a very nice guy,” says Cecilia Pidgeon, a former celebrity editor at GQ China. “He had a very good reputation among other actors. He was always nice to his fans. All of the colleagues he worked with only had good things to say.”
Continue reading...Victoria’s Secret cancels annual televised fashion show as viewers turn off
‘Evolution’ of marketing strategy comes as audiences for the runway show have slumped
The annual Victoria’s Secret televised fashion show, known for its jewel-encrusted bras and supermodels sporting angel wings, will not be held this holiday season, according to an announcement by parent company L Brands Inc.
The official confirmation comes months after Shanina Shaik, an Australian model and Victoria’s Secret Angel, told the Daily Telegraph the show would not be going ahead.
Continue reading...‘I did the first nude in Vogue’: Marisa Berenson on being a blazing star of the 70s and beyond
She was photographed by Warhol, and Dalí wanted to paint her; the first films she made were Death in Venice and Cabaret. So why did she walk away?
Most people, says Marisa Berenson, “tend to live in my past. Which is fine.” She smiles, well aware of the fascination. “But I tend to live in the present and in the future.” A 2001 profile of the model/actor in the New York Times described her as a “Zelig of the zeitgeist … popping up in the right place at the right time”. And there is certainly something magical about her life and the people who have passed through it. As a child (she is now 72) she was taught to dance by Gene Kelly. Greta Garbo came to her parents’ parties; Salvador Dalí – a friend of her grandmother, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli – wanted to paint her. The legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland pushed her to become a model – Yves Saint Laurent would describe her as “the face of the 70s” – and she was photographed by giants such as David Bailey, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. Andy Warhol photographed her wedding.
She discovered meditation in India alongside George Harrison and Ringo Starr, was at Bianca Jagger’s Studio 54 birthday party – the fabled night of the white horse – and attended Truman Capote’s famed Black and White ball. Although she continues to work in film, she hasn’t made a huge number of movies – but the biggest, early in her career, were Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice, Bob Fosse’s Cabaret and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon.
Continue reading...Beauty and the beam: the future of LED therapy looks bright
It’s non-invasive and has been proven to work. But can LED therapy really be a miracle cure for everything from acne to tired skin? Rachel Cooke sees the light
If I said I knew of a sure-fire way to lastingly improve your skin and that all you would have to do to experience this seeming miracle would be to sit for 13 minutes every week beneath a gently pulsing light with your eyes closed, what would be your response? Would you whip out your credit card and rush to book yourself an appointment? Or would you silently mark me down as yet another decadent, middle-aged, straw-clutching desperado who feels bad about her complexion?
To be clear, I don’t feel bad about my neck – not yet. But perhaps I am a middle-aged desperado all the same, for how else to explain my appearance at the Light Salon, a clinic that offers the very treatment I’ve just described? The child of scientists, I’m a natural sceptic when it comes to the claims of the multi-billion-pound beauty industry. I still wash my face, just as I’ve always done, with soap and water. I would no more spend a lot of money on moisturiser, Botox or anything else in that vein than I would run down the street in my underwear. Even if I didn’t have strongly feminist feelings about facelifts, I would still find them alarming both in theory and in practice. Yet here I am, hoping that I will shortly look a little rosier: a better version of myself, if not precisely a younger looking one.
Continue reading...Dressing Afghanistan: young designers get creative in Kabul
In a deeply conservative society ravaged by years of war, Afghan women still want to be free to wear clothes with style
Photography by Ivan Armando Flores
There’s a steady stream of customers coming through the doors of Rahiba Rahimi’s fashion studio. The 25-year-old’s bold, intricate designs are fitted on mannequins and hung on rails around her showroom in Kabul.
Rahimi is the lead designer and co-proprietor of Laman, a clothing label she helped build in the Afghan capital five years ago.
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