Category Archives: Fashion

Balmain chief says at least 50 pieces for Paris fashion week have been stolen

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Artistic director Olivier Rousteing posted that a van travelling between a Paris airport and the firm’s main office was hijacked

Balmain artistic director Olivier Rousteing has said robbers have made off with more than 50 pieces of the new collection that his Paris house intended to show at fashion week later this month.

Posting overnight on Sunday on Instagram, Rousteing said a group of people hijacked his delivery driver on the way from an airport to Balmain’s Paris headquarters. He said they made off with the last pieces he had been expecting for the 27 September womenswear show – more than 50 items in all. He did not give a breakdown of the stolen items.

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Vogue World to donate £2m to London-based arts organisations

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National Theatre and Royal Ballet among 21 groups to receive grants from new fund

Vogue World will donate £2m to London-based arts organisations through a newly established fund, Condé Nast has announced.

The star-studded event at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane on Thursday night was masterminded by the Vogue editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, and the Bafta- and Olivier-winning director Stephen Daldry. Its aim was to celebrate London’s heritage as a cultural powerhouse and to raise money for the UK’s cash-strapped performing arts scene.

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Sarah Burton to leave fashion house Alexander McQueen after two decades

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The brand’s creative director shot to international fame for creating the Princess of Wales’s wedding dress

Sarah Burton, the creative director of Alexander McQueen who designed the Princess of Wales’s wedding dress, is leaving the fashion house after more than two decades.

In a statement released on Monday, Kering, the brand’s parent company, announced that its show on the 30 September during Paris fashion week will be Burton’s last.

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Coco Chanel exhibition reveals fashion designer was part of French resistance

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Previously unseen documents to go on display at V&A alongside evidence of her collusion with Nazis

A major retrospective of Coco Chanel has unearthed evidence that the fashion designer was a documented member of the French resistance. The previously unseen documents will go on display, along with contradictory evidence that she operated as a Nazi agent.

The documents relating to Chanel’s activities in wartime Paris strike a serious note within what is likely to be the most glamorous exhibition of the year, with more than 50 tweed suits – including a bubblegum pink set belonging to Lauren Bacall – on view at Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto, when it opens at the V&A in London on 16 September.

“We couldn’t do a show about Chanel and not address her wartime record,” said the curator, Oriole Cullen, who has expanded a show first created at the Palais Galliera in Paris in 2020 with a new curation that delves more deeply into Chanel’s links with Britain as well as her wartime activities.

Previously unseen documents highlight the name “Gabrielle AKA Coco Chanel” on a list of 400,000 people whose part in the resistance is backed up by official records. “We have verification from the French government, including a document from 1957, which confirms her active participation in the resistance,” said Cullen.

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Zimmermann becomes Australia’s first billion-dollar fashion label after private equity acquisition

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Brand founders Simone and Nicky Zimmermann retain minority shareholding and say they and current management will continue to run the label

Zimmermann has become Australia’s first billion-dollar fashion label after a majority acquisition by private equity firm Advent International.

The label’s founders, sisters Simone and Nicky Zimmermann, have retained a minority shareholding in the brand and said the company would continue to be run by them and current management.

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Saint Laurent selling secondhand band T-shirts in its vintage collection

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Shirts in the range, which is dominated by Nirvana designs, have sold for as much as £3,295

Once the preserve of fans in moshpits at gigs, the band T-shirt cemented its high fashion status this week with an endorsement from a luxury fashion brand – and the price tag to match.

As part of their The Vintage collection, Saint Laurent is now selling secondhand band T-shirts for thousands of pounds. Nirvana dominates with the classic smiley face T-shirt selling for £700 and an In Utero T-shirt priced at £2,510. One T-shirt – featuring the cover of 1992 compilation Incesticide – has hit the headlines. It was sold for an eye-watering £3,295.

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‘Facekinis’ become popular in China as temperatures soar

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People buying full-face masks alongside hats, fans – and hats with inbuilt fans – as temperatures rise above 35C

In scorching Beijing, “facekinis” are the hottest new fashion as surging temperatures shatter records.

With the air temperature rising above 35C (95F) and the ground surface temperature soaring as high as 80C in some parts of the country, residents and visitors have taken to carrying portable fans and covering themselves up to avoid getting burnt. Some hats even have fans built in.

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Hong Kong-born singer Coco Lee dies by suicide aged 48, siblings confirm

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The singer was known for voicing Mulan in the Mandarin version and becoming the first Chinese American to perform at the Oscars

Coco Lee, a Hong Kong-born singer and songwriter who had a highly successful career in Asia, has died by suicide, her siblings said on Wednesday. She was 48.

The star had depression for several years, Lee’s elder sisters Carol and Nancy Lee said in a statement posted on Facebook and Instagram, with her condition deteriorating drastically over recent months.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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Succession drives ‘quiet luxury’ look at Milan fashion week

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Menswear has moved away from logos to more refined silhouettes, with collections from Prada to Raf Simons ditching streetwear

Such is the piercing influence of Succession on the wardrobes of the rich and famous that its stars didn’t even need to make a front-row appearance at Milan fashion week to make their presence felt. Excess is out and elegance is in as designers pursue the “quiet luxury” look that owes much of its recent popularity to the Roy family stone.

At Prada, the bellwether of where the fashion mood heads next, the co-designers Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons used the humble white shirt as a springboard for “a reconsideration of simple things”, said Prada after the show on Sunday.

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Miriam Margolyes: ‘I never had any shame about being gay’

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Actor, 82, also comments she ‘wouldn’t want to be straight for anything’ as she appears on the cover of Vogue for the first time

Miriam Margolyes has said she “never had any shame about being gay” as she makes her British Vogue cover debut at the age of 82.

The award-winning actor, known for her foul mouth and lovable eccentricity, said gay people are “not conventional” and she “wouldn’t want to be straight for anything”.

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British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful promoted to new role

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After six years at the helm of British Vogue Enninful is poised to take on new global role at Condé Nast next year

It’s one of the most coveted jobs in fashion. But, just six years after being named editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Edward Enninful is stepping down from the position. Or, rather, stepping up to take a new global role at the publisher Condé Nast that invites speculation he occupies pole position to one day take over from the legendary editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.

“I am excited to share that from next year I will be stepping into the newly appointed position of editorial advisor of British Vogue and global creative and cultural advisor of Vogue, where I will continue to contribute to the creative and cultural success of the Vogue brand globally while having the freedom to take on broader creative projects,” Enninful wrote to staff.

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Stop dumping your cast-offs on us, Ghanaian clothes traders tell EU

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With 100 tonnes of clothing from the west discarded every day in Accra, ‘fast fashion’ brands must be forced to help pay for the choking textile waste they create, environmentalists say

A group of secondhand clothes dealers from Ghana have visited Brussels to lobby for Europe-wide legislation to compel the fashion industry to help address the “environmental catastrophe” of dumping vast amounts of textiles in the west African country.

The traders from Kantamanto in Accra, one of the world’s largest secondhand clothing markets, met Alice Bah Kuhnke, an MEP with Sweden’s Green party, environmental organisations and representatives from the European Commission and the European Environment Bureau to argue that proposed extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulation should ensure Ghana receives funds towards managing the 100 tonnes of clothing discarded at the market every day.

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Vogue editor Anna Wintour planning London’s answer to Met Gala

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Stormzy, Naomi Campbell and Sadiq Khan among those expected at ticketed fashion show raising funds for city’s arts scene

In a perfect storm of fashion catwalk and West End theatrics, Vogue’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour, is planning a philanthropic arts extravaganza that she hopes will take over the world “in the way the Met Gala did” – while raising money for London’s struggling arts scene.

Featuring Naomi Campbell, Stormzy and Michaela Coel, alongside the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the actor Sir Ian McKellen, the evening event will take place at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and include a red carpet outside, a catwalk show within, and live performances overseen by director Stephen Daldry.

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2023 Met Gala: pearls, pregnancy reveals and a giant cat celebrate Karl Lagerfeld – as it happened

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All the coverage from fashion’s biggest night at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. This year’s theme was Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty. This blog is now closed

And Anna Wintor – Met Gala mastermind – has arrived, arm-in-arm with British actor Bill Nighy (not the science guy).

Speaking of Lagerfeld’s cat …

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Tom Ford bows out as creative director at namesake fashion label

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Longtime associate Peter Hawkings announced as successor after sale of brand last November to Estée Lauder

The American fashion designer Tom Ford is retiring from the eponymous brand he co-founded in 2005, after its sale to Estée Lauder last November.

Ford’s longtime associate Peter Hawkings will succeed him as creative director, while Guillaume Jesel becomes chief executive and president, taking over from Domenico de Sole, the brand’s other co-founder.

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John Travolta’s Saturday Night Fever suit up for sale – with ‘authentic’ sweat marks

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One of two identical white three-pieces worn by star in 1977 role expected to fetch $250,000

It’s one of film’s iconic images: a smouldering John Travolta, in a white three-piece suit, lapels licking the shoulders, raising his right arm on a glowing dancefloor.

And now, the white polyester outfit from Saturday Night Fever – the 1977 chronicle of the dying days of disco – could be yours for a quarter of a million dollars.

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Indigenous tattooist becomes Vogue’s oldest ever cover star at 106

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Apo Whang-Od appears on front of Philippine edition and is credited with keeping batok form of art alive

An Indigenous tattooist in the Philippines credited with helping to keep alive a form of the art known as batok has become the oldest Vogue cover star after appearing in the Philippine edition of the magazine at the age of 106.

Apo Whang-Od, who is from Buscalan, a remote, mountainous village in the Kalinga province of the northern Philippines, began tattooing at 16. Once described as the last remaining mambabatok, or traditional Kalinga tattooist, she has since inspired a new generation to learn batok, said Vogue. Batok involves tapping the tattoo into the skin by hand, using a thorn, which is dipped in soot and natural dye, and is attached to a bamboo stick.

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Bras fit for burying: Australia to set a world-first standard for composting textiles

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Australia has a 227,000 tonne a year fashion waste problem, but thanks to a lingerie designer’s campaign, some of it could soon rot productively

Australians could be the first people in the world to confidently compost their worn out clothing, thanks to a campaign led by a lingerie entrepreneur.

For the last 18 months, Stephanie Devine of the Very Good Bra has worked with sustainability experts, academics and industry to create a proposal for Standards Australia: a technical specification for compostable textiles.

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Australian fashion week 2023: Denni Francisco to be first Indigenous designer to hold solo show

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Wiradjuri designer to hold standalone runway for her label Ngali as the industry continues to feel shockwaves from pandemic

For the first time in Australian fashion week’s 23-year history, an Indigenous Australian designer will hold a standalone show.

Denni Francisco of Indigenous clothing label Ngali said it was “exciting, exhilarating and a little bit terrifying” to be holding her first solo show at the event, which takes place from 15 to 19 May.

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Models and robots share the runway at Coperni fashion show

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Boston Dynamics’ canine automatons steal show in Paris as maison stages modern fable, designers say

Welcome to the age of the super-robot.

With their impossible proportions, thousand-yard stares and supernatural ability to walk in 5in heels, catwalk models often appear a different species to regular humans.

But it was the models, including Kate Moss’s daughter Lila, who played the role of vulnerable, flesh and blood creatures at the Coperni fashion show in Paris, where they shared the stage with five robots.

Coperni partnered with Boston Dynamics for the first fashion show in which robots, rather than models, were the star turn.

As the lights went down, four pairs of green eyes began to flash in the darkness. When the “Spots” – Boston Dynamic’s robot canines, in tarantula stripes of yellow and black – stalked into the room, there was an audible collective intake of breath as each creature seemed to lock eyes with, and approach, an audience member.

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