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"What a life lived!": Fashion icon dies age 102

<p>New York designer and style icon Iris Apfel has passed away aged 102. </p> <p>Her death was confirmed by her commercial agent, Lori Sale, who called Apfel "extraordinary", although no cause of death was given. </p> <p>Apfel, who was born on August 29, 1921, was known for her eccentric outfits, oversized black-rimmed glasses, bright red lipstick and short white hair. </p> <p>Her death was also announced on the fashion icon's official Instagram page, on Friday US time, just one day after she celebrated her 102nd-and-a-half birthday. </p> <p>"Working alongside her was the honour of a lifetime. I will miss her daily calls, always greeted with the familiar question: 'What have you got for me today?'" Sale said in a statement.</p> <p>"She was a visionary in every sense of the word. She saw the world through a unique lens — one adorned with giant, distinctive spectacles that sat atop her nose."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3_geMFu15Y/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/C3_geMFu15Y/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Iris Apfel (@iris.apfel)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p> </p> <p>Apfel was an expert on textiles and antique fabrics. She and her husband Carl owned textile manufacturing company, Old World Weavers, which specialised in restoration work, including projects at the White House under six different US presidents.</p> <p>Apfel first rose to fame in 2005 when the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute hosted a show about her called "Rara Avis". Latin for "rare bird".  </p> <p>They showcased the personal collection of vintage and designer accessories which were style on mannequins dressed in clothes Apfel would wear, and the exhibit became an instant success.</p> <p>Following the exhibit Apfel was awarded several opportunities including featuring in a 2007 coffee table book, a 2012 MAC Cosmetics campaign, and a 2014 documentary about her life, which was nominated for an Emmy award three years later. </p> <p>Apfel was also gained popularity among the younger generation, with over 3 million followers on Instagram, and over 250,000 on TikTok. </p> <p>"More is more & Less is a Bore," the bio read across her social media platforms. </p> <p>Despite her age, Apfel never retired, and told <em>Today</em>: "I think retiring at any age is a fate worse than death. Just because a number comes up doesn't mean you have to stop."</p> <p>Tributes have poured in from fans across the world. </p> <p>"What a life lived! What an example set! What footsteps you have left behind! Rest peacefully, icon!" one wrote. </p> <p>"She inspired so many women to be bold, and brave and truly authentic….to ignore the number of years we have lived and view age as an opportunity to shine. What a beautiful legacy," another added. </p> <p>"What a blessing to live that long and look that fabulous doing it," wrote a third. </p> <p>The style icon was married to Carl Apfel for 67 years until his death in 2015. They had no children. </p> <p><em>Images: Instagram</em></p> <p> </p>

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Helen Mirren debuts new look on the runway at Paris Fashion Week

<p>Helen Mirren has proven yet again that style, glamour and beauty have no age limit, as she hit the runway at Paris Fashion Week to debut her new look. </p> <p>The 78-year-old acting legend showed off a wild crimped hairstyle as she donned a sparkly silver ballgown for L’Oreal's Walk Your Worth event, which took place under the Eiffel Tower on Sunday. </p> <p>Mirren beamed as she walked down the catwalk, exuding confidence and charm, with the who's-who of the fashion world watching on. </p> <p>Mirren appeared alongside fellow actress Elle Fanning, who also sparkled in a plunging gold fringed dress as the unexpected duo held hands. </p> <p>One fan tweeted, “Elle Fanning and Helen Mirren both played Catherine the Great in 2 TV series and I’m so here for this nod.”</p> <p>A host of other celebrities also walked in the fashion show, including Eva Longoria, Cindy Bruna, Andie MacDowell, Viola Davis, and many more. </p> <p>L’Oreal's event focused on women's empowerment, as messages of sisterhood and supporting women and female strength were displayed as stars walked the runway.</p> <p>The brand's website reads that the star-studded event is "inspiring all women to unapologetically show up in the world and walk towards their destiny in confidence" by "celebrating the beauty, the strength, and the potential of all women."</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p>

Beauty & Style

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How 1920s high society fashion pushed gender boundaries through ‘freaking’ parties

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dominic-janes-347508">Dominic Janes</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/keele-university-1012">Keele University</a></em></p> <p>The 1920s brought about a rise in androgynous fashion among a high society set that broke boundaries and caused controversy. This drew on a subculture that had existed for decades, perhaps centuries, but after the first world war gender-bending fashions became front page news.</p> <p>It was a time of upheaval. Established regimes were toppling across Europe. In Britain, women over 30 had finally been given the vote and there was widespread concern about the new hedonism of their younger “flapper” sisters.</p> <p>There was also a new market for novels, such as Radcylffe Hall’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/stories/articles/2019/4/1/radclyffe-hall-well-of-loneliness-legacy#:%7E:text=On%20November%2016%2C%201928%2C%20Biron,its%20immediate%20removal%20from%20circulation.">banned book</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221121-the-well-of-loneliness-the-most-corrosive-book-ever">The Well of Loneliness</a> (1928) that focused on, rather than merely hinted at, queer lives. Daring male university students <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwab036">started wearing makeup</a>. One of these was <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/cecil-beaton-an-introduction">Cecil Beaton</a>, the future celebrity photographer, who <a href="https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/ht24wj66t">delighted in cross-dressing</a> both on stage and off.</p> <p>Beaton became part of a set of high society socialites who were known as the “<a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/cecil-beaton-bright-young-things/exhibition">bright young things</a>”. They were often socially privileged, many of them were queer and their antics were <a href="https://djtaylorwriter.co.uk/page10.htm">widely followed in the media</a> with a mixture of horror and fascination.</p> <p>The “things” took partying seriously and paid great attention to their outfits. They dressed to transgress. In 1920, high society magazine <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/freak-to-chic-9781350172609/">The Sketch reported</a> that what it termed “freak parties” were suddenly in vogue with the younger set.</p> <p>Before the war, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/freak-to-chic-9781350172609/">articles had appeared</a> condemning unusual styles as “freak fashions”, but suddenly “<a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/freak-to-chic-9781350248083/">freaking</a>” was all the rage.</p> <p>Until this point, menswear had been heavily circumscribed. Black was the default colour for formal occasions and tweed for informal settings. But suddenly there was a circle who were keen to try out new looks, no matter how bizarre – or queer-looking – the results.</p> <h2>Queer parties, queer fashions</h2> <p>These styles were often worn as fancy dress, but they borrowed looks from marginalised queer communities such as feminine-styled queer men, some of whom made a living by selling sexual services.</p> <p>One such man was Quentin Crisp, whose memoir <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/324730/the-naked-civil-servant-by-quentin-crisp/">The Naked Civil Servant</a> (1968) was dramatised as a <a href="http://www.crisperanto.org/news/NCSusa2007.html">pioneering TV drama</a>.</p> <p>Another source of inspiration was the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo3682948.html">freak show</a>. These displays, horrifying from a 21st century point of view, were a popular element of circuses at the time. They featured such stock characters as the muscled giant and the bearded lady, some of whom <a href="https://www.thehumanmarvels.com/annie-jones-the-esau-woman/">became celebrities</a> in their own right.</p> <p>Masquerade and fancy dress parties had long been a feature of urban social life, but the bright young things innovated in that they impressed less through the expense of their outfits and more through their queer implications.</p> <p>Many such parties were themed, such as a Greek-themed freak party that was hailed as the greatest “Dionysia” of 1929 (Dionysus being the Greek god of sex and pleasure). Androgynous and cross dressing looks were common and men such as Beaton designed their own frocks.</p> <p>In July 1927, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Her-Husband-was-a-Woman-Womens-Gender-Crossing-in-Modern-British-Popular/Oram/p/book/9780415400077">one magazine declared</a> that an event attended by Beaton’s friend Stephen Tennant dressed as the Queen of Sheba and bisexual actress Tallulah Bankhead dressed as a male tennis star was: “one of the queerest of all the ‘freak’ parties ever given in London”.</p> <h2>The party’s over</h2> <p>The Wall Street crash of 1929 led to a rapid shift in public mood. Economic recession led people to favour sobriety over flamboyance. Money for the parties ran out and media attention faltered.</p> <p>Gender-bending style vanished from the fashionable arena, although it persisted on inner cities streets. Quentin Crisp’s mode of <a href="https://bodleianshop.co.uk/products/british-dandies">queer dandyism</a> was daring for its time, but it only became extraordinary by virtue of his unwillingness to modernise.</p> <p>Seemingly he, and pretty much he alone, continued to wear the queer looks of the interwar period into the television age. He duly <a href="http://www.crisperanto.org/news/AnEnglishmanInNYmovie.html">became a transatlantic celebrity</a> late in life when he became the inspiration for Sting’s song <a href="https://www.sting.com/discography/album/189/Singles">Englishman in New York</a> in 1987.</p> <p>Cecil Beaton, meanwhile, became a leading photographer for Vogue magazine and was commissioned to take official <a href="https://www.rct.uk/cecil-beaton-1904-80">coronation portraits of Elizabeth II</a>. He also designed the fantastic dresses worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film <a href="https://www.tatler.com/article/in-cecil-beatons-show-stopping-designs-for-my-fair-lady-lies-a-story-of-tantrums-and-top-hats">My Fair Lady</a> (1964), inspired by the gowns he and his compatriots had dreamed up for themselves some 40 years earlier.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205893/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dominic-janes-347508">Dominic Janes</a>, Professor of Modern History, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/keele-university-1012">Keele University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty </em><em>Images </em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-1920s-high-society-fashion-pushed-gender-boundaries-through-freaking-parties-205893">original article</a>.</em></p>

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“Fashion diplomacy”: Julie Bishop's style choice that charmed Barack Obama

<p dir="ltr">Julie Bishop has revealed the style choice that charmed former US President Barack Obama and how she used fashion to impress other world leaders during her time as foreign minister.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I've always understood that fashion and your personal style can be a powerful form of communication. It can send important yet subtle messages," Bishop told <em>9Honey</em>.</p> <p dir="ltr">"While I was Foreign Minister, I embraced what I called 'fashion diplomacy' and would often dress in a way that would complement the visit or the person that I was meeting,” she added.</p> <p dir="ltr">In March 2016, Bishop stunned in a white Armani pantsuit when she visited the White House for the Nuclear Security Summit.</p> <p dir="ltr">Bishop impressed then-President Barack Obama in the ensemble she chose as a nod to the official residence and workplace of the US President.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I often wore the national colours of the country I was visiting as a form of compliment, a form of diplomacy," Bishop elaborated.</p> <p dir="ltr">"For example, my Chinese counterpart often noticed that I was wearing red when visiting China or meeting with him,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">In 2017 the Foreign Minister's office confirmed that all of Bishop’s fashion choices were her own, as she did not have a clothing allowance or stylist, and neither did she use taxpayer funds for her outfit.</p> <p dir="ltr">Despite being known for her close relationship with various fashion labels, she also buys most of her clothes herself.</p> <p dir="ltr">Although Fashion Diplomacy has helped the former politician get into the good books with other world leaders, she said that her intentions weren’t just to create better connections.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The Australian fashion industry is a vital contributor to the Australian economy, and particularly to our exports," she added, promoting the Australian fashion industry.</p> <p dir="ltr">Bishop hopes to change people’s attitudes towards the fashion and creative industries, both locally and internationally, so that they don’t view it as frivolous.</p> <p dir="ltr">The former politician has spoken up about her passion for fashion and representing the older female demographic in a previous interview with<em> </em><a href="https://www.oversixty.com.au/lifestyle/beauty-style/style-doesn-t-age-julie-bishop-stuns-for-international-women-s-day" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Stellar Magazine</em> on International Women’s day</a>.</p> <p><em>Image: Minister for Foreign Affairs/The White House</em></p>

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How pink became fashion’s colour of controversy: a brief history

<p>From the blush pink of royal mistresses to the hot pink of tabloid party girls, pink has gained a reputation for being a provocative colour for those who dare to wear it.</p> <p>Despite its various shades and the complexities of its cultural significance, it is a colour that is often branded with the same connotations of feminine frivolity and excess – whether girlish and innocent or womanly and erotic. </p> <p>So much so that worshippers at a North London church were ordered to remove pink chairs after an ecclesiastical judge claimed that the choice of colour scheme could <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/church-sees-red-over-bright-pink-chairs-3trg9xpgk">“cause puzzlement”</a>.</p> <p>This pink panic invites the question: why is pink so controversial? </p> <p>A brief glimpse at its rather colourful history in the Western world reveals associations that both shape and challenge what pink means.</p> <h2>Pink’s past</h2> <p>According to historian <a href="https://thamesandhudson.com/pink-the-history-of-a-punk-pretty-powerful-colour-9780500022269">Valerie Steele</a>, the birth of pink in modern fashion began in the 18th century. By this period, pink had become the colour of choice among courtly elites of the Western world, including royalty and aristocrats.</p> <p>Developments in dye making and the French court’s penchant for cutting-edge garments provided the perfect pairing to begin pink’s success as an emerging fashion staple.</p> <p>Perhaps the most instrumental influence on pink’s power was Madame de Pompadour – the mistress of King Louis XV. She was often portrayed by the painter François Boucher sporting her signature pink gowns and shoes, most notably in his 1759 piece <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/sep/08/art">Madame de Pompadour</a>.</p> <p>In his 1758 painting, <a href="https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/303561">Madame de Pompadour at Her Toilette</a>, she is shown applying rouge from a box of cosmetics – the blushed cheeks implying female sexuality. For Steele, the colour pink in this period becomes attached to both the frivolity of French high fashion and the eroticising of white femininity.</p> <p>From the 18th century court to the 20th century home, pink gained further traction in the 1950s. As British professor of design history <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/As_Long_as_It_s_Pink.html?id=By0qAAAAYAAJ">Penny Sparke</a> writes: “Linked with the idea of female childhood, [pink] represented the emphasis on distinctive gendering that underpinned 1950s society, ensuring that women were women and men were men.”</p> <p>Whether <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjvufXu-vb7AhVJi1wKHY_RCrIQFnoECCYQAQ&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lofficielusa.com%2Ffashion%2Fhistory-behind-jackie-kennedy-pink-suit-chanel-jfk&amp;usg=AOvVaw2gvTMarBjpgCPRBDcV2AwN">adorning first ladies</a>, Hollywood stars or housewives, pink in this era represented a traditional femininity grounded in fixed gender roles.</p> <p>Marilyn Monroe’s iconic pink gown in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045810/">Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953)</a> paired with her <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/stars-9781838718374/">typecast “dumb blonde” film roles</a> and her <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/a-visual-history-of-marilyn-monroe-pin-up-icon_n_56ba8d67e4b0c3c5504f5ee4">pin-up past</a> work together to reinforce the star as a sex symbol to be desired by audiences. As film scholar <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Heavenly-Bodies-Film-Stars-and-Society/Dyer/p/book/9780415310277">Richard Dyer</a> argues, Monroe represented the epitome of sex in conversative 1950s American society.</p> <p>On the other end of the scale, the first lady of the United States Mamie Eisenhower – wife of president Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) – cultivated an image of the ideal housewife through her famous “First Lady Pink” looks.</p> <p>Her stunning <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/photos/mamie-eisenhowers-inaugural-gown-1953">1953 inaugural outfit</a> was a sparkling pink gown embroidered with more than 2,000 rhinestones. She was well-known for her love of all things pink and transformed the White House with this colourful décor, so much so that the household staff called it a <a href="https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/eise/Mamie/personal_interests/EISE3765_scale4.html">“Pink Palace”</a>.</p> <h2>Punk and protest</h2> <p>Beyond the 1950s, pink moved away from its associations of conformity and took on a new purpose: resistance.</p> <p>Paul Simonon, bassist for English punk band The Clash, <a href="https://www.economist.com/1843/2018/09/20/in-the-pink-the-fashion-history-of-a-divisive-colour">famously said</a> that “pink is the only true rock and roll colour”.</p> <p>We can certainly see this in the way that punk musicians reappropriate the sweet and girlish connotations of pink to create subversive performances.</p> <p>For her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/arts/pictures/image/0,8543,-10704677171,00.html">1999 performance at Glastonbury</a>, Hole’s Courtney Love – notorious for her raw and raucous vocals – unexpectedly swapped her rebellious grunge girl look for a pink costume of ballet slippers and fairy wings.</p> <p>Pink is also the colour of feminist activism. The 2017 women’s march saw protesters taking to streets in pink “pussy hats”. </p> <p>They were responding to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html">a recording</a> of then president Donald Trump, in which he boasted about <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiO4Z7P-_b7AhVMEsAKHdtLBAgQFnoECAoQAQ&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Ffrom-chaucer-to-trump-sexist-banter-has-been-defended-as-entertainment-for-600-years-84804&amp;usg=AOvVaw0dCQPpZyNUtNJACNJ7CANh">grabbing women “by the pussy”</a>.</p> <p>This explicit connection between pink, female genitalia and activism is a feminist statement that emphasises women’s lack of autonomy over their own bodies in a patriarchal society.</p> <h2>Pink reclaimed</h2> <p>The connotations of pink are not fixed, but malleable. Whether worn by film stars, musicians or celebrities, the colour takes on new meanings through irony and reclamation.</p> <p>The 2001 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250494/">Legally Blonde</a> subverts the gendered <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Neo-Feminist-Cinema-Girly-Films-Chick-Flicks-and-Consumer-Culture/Radner/p/book/9780415877749">“dumb blonde” stereotypes </a>associated with wearing pink by following the successes of a sorority girl who goes to law school.</p> <p>When Madonna donned her pink Material Girl look, she positioned herself as <a href="https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-performance-identities-of-lady-gaga/">the new Marilyn Monroe</a>: a blonde bombshell for the era of Second Wave Feminism. She reworked Monroe’s tragic stardom into a narrative about female empowerment and survival.</p> <p>On TikTok, the <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2020/12/10217066/tiktok-bimbo-gen-z-trend">#Bimbo trend</a> involves feminine-presenting content creators finding inspiration in the once derogatory “bimbo” label. Their videos <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/23/the-bimbo-is-back-and-as-a-feminist-i-couldnt-be-more-delighted">reclaim the label</a> as a playful aesthetic and a new feminist lifestyle.</p> <p>Despite its longstanding associations with feminine frivolity and excess, pink consistently proves itself to be a transgressive colour. It moves with the times and does not shy away from parodying its own past.</p> <p>If Paris Hilton’s <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/paris-hilton-versace-show">surprise runway appearance</a> earlier this year in sparkling pink Versace bridal wear tells us anything, it’s that pink should never be underestimated. It still has the power to shock, fascinate and make a statement.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pink-became-fashions-colour-of-controversy-a-brief-history-196535" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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Gen Z grew up in a world filled with ugly fashion – no wonder they love their Crocs

<p>In 2017, Julia Hobbs of British Vogue <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/crocs-sandals-christopher-kane-trend-test">declared</a> Crocs “have an unrivalled ability to repel onlookers and induce sneers”.</p> <p>But over the two decades since the notoriously ugly shoes were released, the clogs seem to be going from strength to strength. </p> <p>No longer just the comfortable, easy-to-wear boat shoes they were designed as, now they’re being worn by celebrities like <a href="https://www.vogue.com/vogueworld/article/ariana-grande-crocs-controversial-shoe-trend">Ariana Grande</a>, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-10-13/justin-bieber-crocs-bad-bunny-post-malone">Justin Bieber</a>, <a href="https://www.hellomagazine.com/film/20220531141686/the-view-whoopi-goldberg-divides-fans-backstage-photo-concern-for-safety/">Whoopi Goldberg</a> and Drew Barrymore, who has her <a href="https://us.fashionnetwork.com/news/Drew-barrymore-launches-crocs-collection,943183.html">own collection</a>.</p> <p>Bedazzled white Crocs are being worn with <a href="https://nypost.com/2023/02/15/brides-mocked-for-wearing-blinged-out-crocs-on-their-big-day/">wedding dresses</a>, #crocs has more than 7.3 billion views <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/crocs?lang=en">on TikTok</a>, and diehard fans can buy <a href="https://www.carousell.sg/p/preorder-mini-crocs-jibbitz-accessory-charms-fun-quirky-1174036132/">mini Crocs</a> to decorate their Crocs with.</p> <p>Even supermodel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-LLMIjIQM">Kendall Jenner</a> admitted on the <em>Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon</em> that she is not ashamed of her comfy Crocs.</p> <p>But the most common place you’re likely to see Crocs today is on the feet of Generation Z. They grew up with ugly fashion, and are now making it their own.</p> <h2>A brief history</h2> <p>Crocs’ ancestors are the clog: a cheap, comfortable, lightweight, practical wooden shoe popular in medieval Europe and Scandinavia. </p> <p>Traditional wooden clogs were easy to clean, non-slip, protected the wearer’s feet and kept them warm and dry. </p> <p>The oldest surviving pair found in Holland <a href="https://isgeschiedenis.nl/reportage/geschiedenis-van-de-klompen">date to 1230</a>.</p> <p>Crocs premiered their shoe at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show in 2002. Made from a tough form of injection-moulded ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, which moulds to the wearer’s foot, all 200 pairs at the show sold out. </p> <p>Crocs were easy to clean, non-slip, could easily be pulled on and off, and would not suffer from continued exposure to water. </p> <p>But they weren’t popular in all corners. Time magazine included Crocs in their 2010 list of <a href="https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991743,00.html">the 50 worst inventions</a>.</p> <p>And from the outset, even Crocs’ cofounders considered them <a href="https://www.parents.com/kids/style/fashion/crocs/">ugly</a>. </p> <h2>Ugly fashion</h2> <p>The 21st century’s love of deliberately ugly fashion can be traced to 1996, with Miuccia Prada launching her <a href="https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-1996-ready-to-wear/prada">“Bad Taste” collection</a>. </p> <p>The early 2000s gave us ugly comfort dressing in the form of the bright, velour <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2014/06/70125/juicy-couture-stores-closing">Juicy Couture</a> tracksuit. Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake’s <a href="https://people.com/style/britney-spears-justin-timberlake-matching-denim-moment-20th-anniversary/">iconic matching double denim moment</a> at the 2001 American Music Awards embodied the era’s ugliness.</p> <p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/">Generation Z</a> grew up in this ugly fashion world. Many rocked their first brightly coloured pair of Crocs as toddlers. </p> <p>This generation also learned to express themselves online, where <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470412914544516">Internet Ugly</a> – a deliberately grotesque, anti-authoritarian and amateurish aesthetic – is a key look of memes. </p> <p>Memes celebrate ugliness as a relatable, authentic foil against the slickly perfect images generated by filters, Hollywood and self-serious corporate design. Memes evolve, but the images, templates and looks of memes stays similar and the ugly aesthetic continues to spread and be enjoyed.</p> <p>Crocs are, in a sense, wearable memes for Gen Z. </p> <p>Like memes, Crocs have changed and returned through nostalgic affectation. </p> <p>In the two decades since their launch, Crocs have constantly reinvented themselves. There have been new colours and collaborations with popular brands, including <a href="https://www.crocs.com.au/collab/minecraft">computer games</a> and high fashion houses like <a href="https://www.crocs.com.au/p/liberty-london-x-crocs-classic-clog/206447.html">Liberty of London</a>.</p> <p>Each generation rediscovers the objects of its youth and replicates these objects in new ways. The resulting objects – in this case, Crocs – are passed around and either made uglier or beautified in the eye of the beholder. Every pair of Crocs can be customised with “<a href="https://www.crocs.com.au/c/jibbitz">Jibbitz</a>”, a small ornament that fits into the holes throughout the shoe to beautify Crocs for their owner. </p> <p>In the United Kingdom, Crocs <a href="https://www.mylondon.news/lifestyle/fashion/primark-shoppers-hysterics-hideous-9-25693380">paired with</a> fast-fashion retailer Primark and high-street bakery Greggs to create ugly, fur-lined, black £9 Crocs with Greggs’ logo. </p> <p>At the other end of the budget, you can buy <a href="https://www.elle.com/uk/fashion/trends/g36656071/croc-collaborations/">Balenciaga’s lime green Crocs</a> with a black sole and black stiletto heel.</p> <h2>Crocs and the pandemic</h2> <p>Ugliness lets viewers laugh and release tensions in situations where they <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674024090">are helpless to act</a>.</p> <p>Adrian Holloway, Crocs’ general manager, told <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/crocs-rubber-shoe-trend">Vogue, "</a>In times of stress and uncertainty, consumers seem to want comfort […] Everything was so heavy and scary, it felt good to treat yourself to something cheerful and inexpensive, but also practical and comfortable."</p> <p>The COVID pandemic left Gen Z unable to participate in important social rites of passage like graduations, milestone birthdays, weddings and funerals. </p> <p>Global lockdowns also left people feeling a strange blend of shock, boredom and irritation. </p> <p>Like laughing at ugly memes, laughing at cute, ugly Crocs helped release feelings of powerlessness. </p> <h2>Here to stay</h2> <p>Popular predictions of <a href="https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/june-2022/clothes/comfort-or-style/">post-pandemic fashions</a> suggest there are two options: we will continue to dress for comfort, or we will embrace eye-catching colours and patterns and strange silhouettes. </p> <p>The popularity of Crocs among Gen Z suggests a third option: a combination of the comfortable with the crazy.</p> <p>Worn today, these shoes signal the wearer’s capacity for casualness, irony, rebellion, and a desire to forge their own fashion rules in an Internet Ugly world. </p> <p>Crocs are <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/g41416862/spring-2023-shoe-trends/">here to stay</a>.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/gen-z-grew-up-in-a-world-filled-with-ugly-fashion-no-wonder-they-love-their-crocs-200718" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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Stylist’s top tips for the fashion fearful

<p dir="ltr">Whether you enjoy fully committing to the art of dressing up or prefer just to throw on the first things you can find, knowing a few basic tips and tricks can make all the difference. </p> <p dir="ltr">And luckily, personal stylist Natalie Baker has revealed to <em>MammaMia</em>’s Laura Jackel her 6 best pieces of advice for those hoping to level up their wardrobe without spending a fortune. </p> <ol> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Have fun with colour, but don’t turn your back on black </strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">Many people can be unsure about dipping into the wild world of colour when selecting pieces to wear, but as Natalie explained, they ultimately come to love it when they try on certain combinations - be those seasonal colours, or simply palettes they might not have considered otherwise. </p> <p dir="ltr">And, according to Natalie, wearing some colour has an unexpected benefit, as “wearing a colour that's not black, close to your face, is also much more flattering for mature skin.”</p> <p dir="ltr">For those who have a difficult time stepping away from black, Natalie suggests trying other neutral tones such as navy, grey, and camel. </p> <p dir="ltr">“It doesn’t mean you can’t wear black,” she assured, “but maybe pair your black blazer with a white or light coloured cami or t-shirt and jewellery to help light up the face."  </p> <ol start="2"> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Invest in classics</strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">While trends can be fun - for a while - Natalie stressed the importance of well tailored classics. She suggested purchasing the “best your budget can afford”, as a flattering style will never go out of date. </p> <p dir="ltr">“A quality suit is great as it can be styled up or down and used as separates,” she explained. “A good pair of jeans and some basic tops to wear over and over really make up the basis of any wardrobe.”</p> <p dir="ltr">For those who would like to have a little more fun with their look, or who love to embrace a fad, she recommended adding a trendy accessory, or a splash of popular colour to suit your needs. </p> <ol start="3"> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Don’t be so hard on yourself </strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">Natalie opened up about her experience in guiding people over the age of 40 who lack self-confidence, or don’t know how to embrace their bodies after the changes life has brought their way. She explained that, in these cases, she helps her clients to “pick out elements of colours or styles that they used to love and bring them up-to-date so they suit them now.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Clients can be very self-critical, and I know we all do it,” she said, “but I tell people to speak to themselves gently and kindly and to focus on their best traits." </p> <ol start="4"> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Tucking a top </strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">Tucking in a shirt is a popular trick amongst stylists, but Natalie has one very particular rule when it comes to perfecting the twist: tucking up, not down, to create a better silhouette and to prevent creasing. </p> <p dir="ltr">"If you take the bottom of your shirt and tuck it up and under your bra, it creates a tidy 'tucked in' look but without the fabric 'bulk' around your middle that happens when you tuck shirts down into your pants or jeans,” she instructed. </p> <ol start="5"> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Consider what you already have </strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">According to Natalie, it helps to consider your specific “wardrobe dilemmas” and know what it is you hope to resolve. That way, when you next set out to the shops, you’ll know what you already have in your wardrobe, and what you can pair your new pieces with. One rule of thumb is not to buy something new without first having a couple of outfits in mind for it. </p> <ol start="6"> <li dir="ltr" aria-level="1"> <p dir="ltr" role="presentation"><strong>Enjoy yourself </strong></p> </li> </ol> <p dir="ltr">Changes for the better should make you feel good, and finding the right outfit for you can work wonders on that front. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I recently saw a 91-year-old client who wanted to look smart because it made her feel good,” Natalie shared, “which shows that nice clothes can do that for you at any age.”</p> <p dir="ltr">She went on to mention that life can get busier and trickier as time goes on, and that the least she can do is help people go out without worrying and stressing over how they look in what they’re wearing - because feeling good, at the end of the day, is the most important thing. </p> <p> </p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Getty </em></p>

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“So disappointing”: Rebel Wilson’s fashion line slammed for lack of inclusivity

<p dir="ltr">Rebel Wilson has come under fire after the launch of her clothing line was slammed for a lack of size inclusivity. </p> <p dir="ltr">The Australian actress recently launched R&amp;R Club, a loungewear fashion brand, with her partner Ramona Agruma.</p> <p dir="ltr">However, the initial launch raised eyebrows of Rebel’s fans, as the first collection is only available in sizes XS, S, M, and L/XL. </p> <p dir="ltr">The largest size in this collection, which roughly equates to a size 14-16, excludes a lot of larger-sized people who are fans of the actress and wanted to get their hands on her new products. </p> <p dir="ltr">Rebel herself was formerly “plus size” before embarking on her “year of health” in 2020 which saw her lose more than 30kgs.</p> <p dir="ltr">As a result, fans have been left “bitterly disappointed”, with many taking to social media to slam the actress’s choice. </p> <p dir="ltr">In a TikTok video captioned “can we talk about the lack of size inclusivity in Rebel Wilson’s brand”, one woman said she was “confused” by the move.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I don’t understand how someone who was plus size for the majority of her career and majority of her life, as someone who knows how hard it is to be fat and to shop for clothing and actually find it in your size...” the TikTok user said. </p> <p dir="ltr">“I don’t understand how someone with that background, that knowledge, could release a brand that only goes up to an XL.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“People’s biggest argument for this is always, ‘oh it’s so expensive to have so many size ranges,’ but it’s Rebel Wilson. She’s got money.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The video quickly racked up thousands of views, with many agreeing it was “ridiculous”. </p> <p dir="ltr">“It’s so disappointing when you see something you love and are so excited and they do not offer in my size,” one commented. </p> <p dir="ltr">Another said, “Wow. I’m disappointed in her. She knew how this felt.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Out of all the people I thought she would have bigger sizes since she was bigger than a XL back in the day so disappointed in her,” another raged.</p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p>

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"I can only do so much": we asked fast-fashion shoppers how ethical concerns shape their choices

<p>You’ve found the perfect dress. You’ve tried it on before and you know it looks great. Now it’s on sale, a discount so large the store is practically giving it away. Should you buy it?</p> <p>For some of us it’s a no-brainer. For others it’s an ethical dilemma whenever we shop for clothes. <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JFMM-01-2019-0011/full/html">What matters more</a>? How the item was made or how much it costs? Is the most important information on the label or the price tag?</p> <p>Of the world’s industries that profit from worker exploitation, the <a href="https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/">fashion industry is notorious</a>, in part because of the sharp contrast between how fashion is made and how it is marketed. </p> <p>There are more people <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/publications/books/WCMS_575479/lang--en/index.htm">working in exploitative conditions</a> than ever before. Globally, the garment industry employs millions of people, with <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/briefingnote/wcms_758626.pdf">65 million garment sector workers in Asia alone</a>. The Clean Clothes Campaign estimates <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/poverty-wages">less than 1%</a> of what you pay for a typical garment goes to the workers who made it.</p> <h2>How much does a worker make on a $30 shirt?</h2> <p>Some work in conditions so exploitative they meet the definition of being <a href="https://www.commonobjective.co/article/modern-slavery-and-the-fashion-industry">modern slaves</a> – trapped in situations they can’t leave due to coercion and threats.</p> <p>But their plight is hidden by the distance between the worker and the buyer. Global supply chains have helped such exploitation to hide and thrive. </p> <p>Do we really care, and what can we do?</p> <p>We conducted <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-06-2021-0158">in-depth interviews</a> with 21 women who buy “fast fashion” – “on-trend” clothing made and sold at very low cost – to find out how much they think about the conditions of the workers who make their clothes, and and what effort they take to avoid slave-free clothing. Well-known fast-fashion brands include H&amp;M, Zara and Uniqlo.</p> <p>What they told us highlights the inadequacy of seeking to eradicate exploitation in the fashion industry by relying on consumers to do the heavy lifting. Struggling to seek reliable information on ethical practices, consumers are overwhelmed when trying to navigate ethical consumerism. </p> <h2>Out of sight, out of mind</h2> <p>The 21 participants in our research were women aged 18 to 55, from diverse backgrounds across Australia. We selected participants who were aware of exploitation in the fashion industry but had still bought fast fashion in the previous six months. This was not a survey but qualitative research involving in-depth interviews to understand the disconnect between awareness and action.</p> <p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-06-2021-0158">key finding </a> is that clothing consumers’ physical and cultural distance from those who make the clothes makes it difficult to relate to their experience. Even if we’ve seen images of sweatshops, it’s still hard to comprehend what the working conditions are truly like.</p> <p>As Fiona*, a woman in her late 30s, put it: “I don’t think people care [but] it’s not in a nasty way. It’s like an out of sight, out of mind situation.”</p> <p>This problem of geographic and cultural distance between garment workers and fashion shoppers highlights the paucity of solutions premised on driving change in the industry through consumer activism. </p> <h2>Who is responsible?</h2> <p>Australia’s Modern Slavery Act, for example, tackles the problem only by requiring large companies to report to a <a href="https://modernslaveryregister.gov.au/">public register</a>on their efforts to identify risks of modern slavery in their supply chains and what they are doing to eliminate these risks. </p> <p>While greater transparency is certainly a big step forward for the industry, the legislation still presumes that the threat of reputational damage is enough to get industry players to change their ways. </p> <p>The success of the legislation falls largely on the ability of activist organisations to sift through and publicise the performance of companies in an effort to encourage consumers to hold companies accountable.</p> <p>All our interviewees told us they felt unfairly burdened with the responsibility to seek information on working conditions and ethical practices to hold retailers to account or to feel empowered to make the “correct” ethical choice.</p> <p>“It’s too hard sometimes to actually track down the line of whether something’s made ethically,” said Zoe*, a woman in her early 20s.</p> <p>Given that many retailers are themselves ignorant about <a href="https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/companies-risk-litigation-over-modern-slavery-ignorance-20201215-p56nix">their own supply chains</a>, it is asking a lot to expect the average consumer to unravel the truth and make ethical shopping choices.</p> <h2>Confusion + overwhelm = inaction</h2> <p>“We have to shop according to what we care about, what is in line with our values, family values, budget,” said Sarah*, who is in her early 40s. </p> <p>She said she copes with feeling overwhelmed by ignoring some issues and focus on the ethical actions she knew would make a difference. “I’m doing so many other good things,” she said. “We can’t be perfect, and I can only do so much.” </p> <p>Other participants also talked about juggling considerations about environmental and social impacts.</p> <p>“It’s made in Bangladesh, but it’s 100% cotton, so, I don’t know, is it ethical?” is how Lauren*, a woman in her early 20s, put it. “It depends on what qualifies as ethical […] and what is just marketing.”</p> <p>Comparatively, participants felt their actions to mitigate environmental harm made a tangible difference. They could see the impact and felt rewarded and empowered to continue making positive change. This was not the case for modern slavery and worker rights more generally.</p> <p>Fast fashion is a lucrative market, with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-billionaire-family-behind-fast-fashion-powerhouse-boohoo-2019-11?r=AU&amp;IR=T">billions in profits made</a>thanks to the work of the lowest paid workers in the world.</p> <p>There is no denying consumers wield a lot of power, and we shouldn’t absolve consumers of their part in creating demand for the cheapest clothes humanly – or inhumanly – possible. </p> <p>But consumer choice alone is insufficient. We need a system where all our clothing choices are ethical, where we don’t need to make a choice between what is right and what is cheap.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-can-only-do-so-much-we-asked-fast-fashion-shoppers-how-ethical-concerns-shape-their-choices-172978" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>

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Julie Bishop discusses the power of fashion in a male-dominated government

<p>After a long career in law and politics, Julie Bishop is no stranger to being a woman in a male-dominated workplace. </p> <p>Throughout her time in parliament, Julie was told by "an older white male" within her party to dress more like a Minister for Aging should, to "drop the corporate look" in favour of "cardigans", and was mockingly dubbed the Minister for Fashion while Foreign Minister.</p> <p>"I had forged a career in law at a time when there were very few women in senior ranks and so I was accustomed to being in a very male dominated profession, so I didn't ever see my career through a gender lens," Bishop tells <a href="https://honey.nine.com.au/latest/julie-bishop-interview-breaking-barriers-australian-fashion-diplomacy-politics-of-dress-exclusive/cfb790bf-e447-48d3-bb73-a1a22c6c531d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">9Honey</a> in London.</p> <p>"It was the norm to me, but over time, I did find the different standard, somewhat frustrating, but I knew why that happened because all the conventions and protocols and attitudes in parliament were established at a time when there were no women in parliament and it takes a long time to change people's attitudes."</p> <p>As Julie forged her own way through the walls of Parliament House and demanded respect from her male colleagues, she found a way to harness her love of fashion to make a political statement. </p> <p>Following in the footsteps of Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State – a woman Bishop says she "admired enormously" – she tried her hand at "brooch diplomacy" for a while "but I found that the use of colour was even more powerful".</p> <p>Bishop began to help drive the fashion industry contributing approximately $13 billion to the Australian economy at the time, with the invaluable help of <em>Vogue Australia</em> editor Edwina McCann. </p> <p>"I have come to accept that there are different standards applied to female politicians as opposed to male politicians but I use that, I think, to the advantage of Australia," she tells 9Honey.</p> <p>"I was representing Australia overseas. So I deliberately chose Australian fashions that were notable and appropriate to send a message that necessarily meant that there would be media focus on my clothes, so I could hardly complain about it.</p> <p> </p> <p>"But there were times when my promotion of Australian fashion was the subject of criticism. I believe that came about because of ignorance."</p> <p>"My critics ridiculed me by calling me the Minister for Fashion [but] little did they realise that I absolutely revelled in that and wore it as a badge of honour."</p> <p> </p> <p>"I felt vindicated every time a young designer said to me, 'Julie, when you wear one of my outfits on the world stage, I've made it. Suddenly the orders come in. Suddenly, people want to know me.' That was my vindication."</p> <p><em>Image credits: 9Honey</em></p>

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Digital fashion and the Metaverse: a new way for people to experience fashion

<p>Is screen wear the new street wear?</p> <p>As people spend more time online – in meetings, social media and video games – clothing brands and designers are increasingly interweaving digital design with physical fashion.</p> <p>The wave of new fashion technology encompasses everything from tailoring the look of your online gaming avatar, to digital sampling and fittings, through to virtual runways and fashion shows.</p> <p>Industry experts discussed the emerging trends at a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH6l5Gk5dZ4" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">panel on Fashion and the Metaverse</a> <a href="https://tmice.edu.au" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hosted by</a> The Masters Institute of Creative Education. </p> <p>Founder of virtual reality and streaming start up Inverse Darren Vukasinovic, says interest in digital fashion and technologies like augmented and virtual reality, surged as people shifted to online spaces like Zoom and Teams during the pandemic. </p> <p>He says it wasn’t long before people began thinking, “what is my identity when I’m living in a digital space?”</p> <p>“I saw it in the creativity of the backgrounds people were starting to use, their virtual backgrounds. You’d get on these calls and the first couple of times it’s normal… and then, all of a sudden the backgrounds and getting more elaborate and the filters are getting more elaborate.”</p> <p>Australian fashion designer <a href="https://www.danielavakian.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Daniel Avakian</a> says, digital technologies like 3D pattern making and rendering can alleviate the cost, work, time and waste involved in traditional fashion sampling.</p> <p>Avakian says, “in the fashion industry in the back end … a designer creates an idea, an inspiration and they create a 2D technical drawing. And then they give it to a pattern maker and the pattern maker will create a sample. And this all costs time and money. </p> <p>“And then you’ve got a dozen people in the back room doing that. But upskilling them with this new technology and this new workflow saves all brands, many, many costs in that long arduous process. </p> <p>“And we stop having to create all that wastage in sampling … we can see it digitally … it will create a new, efficient way for people to experience fashion.”</p> <p>Avakian’s company has been experimenting with the use of 3D body scanning technology to create red carpet gowns. </p> <p>“So [for] a couple of red carpet pieces we’ve been doing in Australia, the clients have a body scan, and we’ve made them a red-carpet dress in, like, two weeks. And it’s through the body scan technology we get all their measurements… my factories are able to then custom-make the garment from the design.”</p> <p>The efficiencies in these new digital processes offer sustainability benefits in the form of lower greenhouse emissions, waste and transport miles involved in sending new season clothing sample sets around the world. On the flip side, some technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrencies can consume large amounts of energy.</p> <p>Avakian says he sees the need for upskilling and education, ensuring that fashion, textiles and design students understand these emerging digital concepts.</p> <p>“Having young designers learn how to be able to use 3D pattern making software to show, to see changes on a lapel, or changes on a dress.”</p> <p>‘Screen wear’ is term used for the technology which allows people to add photo-realistic clothing items to their social media photographs. This gives people opportunities to purchase and ‘wear’ items that they might not otherwise choose, or be able to afford in the real world.</p> <p>Eugene Leung, the creative director of fashion and design company <a href="https://theinjury.com.au/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Injury</a>, says digital fashion and 3D rendering can also help eliminate the real-world waste that results when certain types of consumers, like Instagram influencers, buy an item of clothing and only wear it once. </p> <p>“Digital fashion can basically satisfy the desire for consumption, but in a more sustainable way,” he says.</p> <p>Increasingly there is blending between digital and physical worlds. For example, Leung says sometimes customers will buy a piece of digital clothing and later ask him to make a physical version.</p> <p>Digital producer and retired model <a href="https://www.caitlinlomax.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Caitlin Lomax</a>, says the technology already exists for rendering digital clothing items onto a photo of a person, or an avatar in a game. </p> <p>“When we’re talking about fashion in a rendered, simulated thing. We can get such high-quality beautiful visuals,” she says.</p> <p>Lomax says, ‘digital first’ designers focus on developing the clothing and styles – known as ‘skins’ – for computer game and Metaverse avatars on the screen, rather than fashion in the physical world.</p> <p>Avakian says digital campaigns can also offer new ways of marketing clothing.</p> <p>“At <a href="https://nyfw.com/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York fashion week</a>, our finale dress … we took a Metaverse asset and brought it into the real world and let it walk down the runway.” </p> <p>“We’ve sold quite a few of those dresses as the real garment, just from that Metaverse imagery,” he says.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=220452&amp;title=Digital+fashion+and+the+Metaverse%3A+a+new+way+for+people+to+experience+fashion" width="1" height="1" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></em></p> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/digital-fashion-and-the-metaverse-a-new-way-for-people-to-experience-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Petra Stock. </em></p> </div>

Beauty & Style

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Short shift: Fashion week research on how the ’60s and ’70s rocked Australia’s clothing industry

<div class="copy"> <p>It was the dress that shocked a nation and signalled an industrial revolution.</p> <p>When sixties model Jean Shrimpton attended the 1965 Melbourne Cup dressed in a simple white shift hemmed well above the knee – with no gloves or stockings – the outfit immediately sparked scandal.</p> <p>The moment encapsulates a series of cultural, social, economic and technological shifts underway in Australia which led to the unravelling of the local clothing manufacturing industry.</p> <p>It was this iconic photo, depicting nonchalant Shrimpton on the lawns of Flemington Racecourse, which inspired Pauline Hastings PhD research at Monash University into the history of Australia’s textiles and clothing industry from the 1960s on.</p> <p>Hastings is <a href="https://mfw.melbourne.vic.gov.au/event/miniskirts-the-unravelling-rag-trade/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">presenting her research</a> as part of Melbourne Fashion Week.</p> <p>A lesser-known detail about ‘that dress’: Shrimpton was sponsored to attend Derby Day by industrial chemical and fossil fuel company Du Pont, to promote the company’s new synthetic fabric, Orlon. </p> <p>Cheap, mostly imported synthetic fabrics (made from fossil fuels) were one of several factors contributing to a major shift in Australian clothing manufacturing and consumption, Hastings says.</p> <p>Hastings says, there is a clear thread linking the rise of synthetic fabrics like Orlon, Dacron, Rayon (… anything ending with an ‘on’), which had a throwaway quality to them, and today’s <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/sustainability/fast-fashion-part-one/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fast fashion addiction</a>. Australia is the second largest consumer of textiles globally, buying on average <a href="https://www.monash.edu/msdi/news-and-events/news/articles/2022/urgent-call-to-reduce-australias-sizeable-fashion-footprint-and-its-impact-on-planetary-and-human-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener">56 new items of clothing </a>per person, per year.</p> <p>Post war immigration and the rise of the ‘baby boomers’ led to a greater emphasis on youth culture and individualism. </p> <p>This, together with the rise of advertising and mass marketing helped drive a cultural shift away from the ‘make do and mend’ era where fabrics and clothing were often unpicked and re-sewn into new garments. </p> <p>Hastings says the removal and reduction of tariff protections was another contributing factor to the demise of local manufacturing.</p> <p>Before the post-war era, “everyday clothes weren’t imported. They were manufactured here … made for local consumption,” she says.</p> <p>“Imports on mass were kept out by tariff protection. So, very high tariffs on anything important [which] meant that if they did come in, imports were sort of priced considerably higher in the marketplace than our local product. And our local product was not overly cheap from what I can gather, because it was pretty,  labor intensive and Australian wages at the time were quite high.”</p> <p>Interwoven, these different factors – the commodification of youth culture, the reduction in tariff protections by the Whitlam government, and the rise of new synthetic fabrics – all contributed to the demise of Australia’s local clothing manufacturing industry.</p> <p>Today, 97% of Australia’s clothing is imported.</p> <p>By sharing her research, Hastings says, she hopes we can learn from history.</p> <p>“It’s how culturally we can shift. Because, we did a major shift from the post war era of what I call ‘thrift and making do.’ We did a major shift then to a sort of a ‘purchase everything we can possibly see throwaway society’ when it comes to fashion, in a couple of decades.” </p> <p>She says, history shows, if we really wanted to, we could learn again, to value things, recycle, upcycle and cultivate a culture of sustainability.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=217818&amp;title=Short+shift%3A+Fashion+week+research+on+how+the+%26%238217%3B60s+and+%26%238217%3B70s+rocked+Australia%26%238217%3Bs+clothing+industry" width="1" height="1" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/how-the-60s-rocked-australian-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Petra Stock. </em></p> </div>

Beauty & Style

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15 simple fashion upgrades that make you look expensive

<p><strong>Tiny tweaks, big results</strong></p> <p>If you’ve ever wished that you could be one of those people who always looks on-trend and incredibly put together, we’ve got some news for you: you can – and you can do it on a budget. And thank goodness for that, because life is expensive enough as it is without having to overhaul your entire wardrobe every season!</p> <p>The key to looking like you spent a fortune without bankrupting yourself is to shop smart. By knowing some clever style tricks, mixing the right pieces, and investing in a few well-made staples, you can completely transform and elevate your look.</p> <p><strong>Opt for better fabrics</strong></p> <p>You don’t need to plunk down all your spare cash on designer labels – as long as your fabrics are mostly natural and high quality. Nailing the perfect business-casual look, going-out ensemble, or weekend wear comes down to using better fabrics in chic ways, says Ashley Michelle Miller, a celebrity wardrobe stylist who works with everyone from major talk-show hosts to regular women in need of wardrobe refreshing.</p> <p>“It’s all about organic and true fabrics,” she explains. “Cashmere is the way to go, and while those fabrics need a little more love and care with handwashing and dry-cleaning, they can make all the difference and last so much longer than synthetic versions.”</p> <p><strong>Wear dark denim</strong></p> <p>Whether you’re into trendy cut-off hems, boyfriend fits, or slim and tapered ankles, stylists say that a sophisticated dark wash can take you from a runway-worthy day to a night out with friends. The key is choosing the right size and a high-quality dark wash that won’t soon fade.</p> <p><strong>Stock your closet with one great blazer</strong></p> <p>“It’s time to take inventory of your life,” says Miller. “Where do you spend most of your time? That’s where you need to invest your wardrobe budget, in items that make you look your best.”</p> <p>She suggests finely tailored basics like a black blazer with expensive-seeming details.  “Details matter, so a flattering cut with higher-end buttons and fabrics are ways to set you apart.”</p> <p><strong>Mix textures and patterns</strong></p> <p>“Mastering the art of mixing textures and patterns is one of the keys to looking expensive on any budget,” says Bernadette Vajda, an internationally acclaimed model and professional image consultant.</p> <p>“Pair natural silk with other rich fabrics in the same colour scheme like denim or cashmere. Wearing the same colour scheme in different textures will elevate any look.”</p> <p><strong>Splurge on a strong black coat</strong></p> <p>“Invest in classic, high-quality outerwear in timeless black or camel colourways,” shares Vajda. “It will last you decades. Classic styles never expire and will carry you through every decade – warm.”</p> <p><strong>Accentuate your shape</strong></p> <p>“People tend to gravitate toward black or oversized garments to disguise their insecurities,” explains Vajda. “But the key to looking chic is making sure your clothes fit your curves. Don’t hide them or try to cover them up or even try to camouflage. Wear clothes that you’re comfortable in that accentuate your body properly.”</p> <p><strong>Choose undergarments you feel confident in</strong></p> <p>It turns out that the most important layers when making an outfit seem expensive are the bottom and top ones. Underpinnings and coats both pave the way to the most put-together looks.</p> <p>Vajda tells her clients to invest in good, trustworthy shapewear they’ll feel comfortable wearing beneath their favourite pants, dresses and skirts. The goal is to present a smooth silhouette and highlight your body’s natural shape.</p> <p><strong>Buy a well-fitting bra</strong></p> <p>Both Miller and Vajda agree that a supportive bra is necessary for any outfit to deliver an expensive-seeming appearance. If you’re bulging, wearing the wrong size, or not investing in the right cup style for your assets, even the best cashmere can look cheap.</p> <p><strong>Add a colourful dress to your wardrobe</strong></p> <p>That little black dress you already have is great, and Miller suggests making it look expensive with the right shoes, jewellery and beauty routine. But it’s equally important to have a colourful dress in your wardrobe, too.</p> <p>“If evening engagements are a regular thing, you need a little coloured dress – an upgraded riff on everyone’s favourite LBD,” she says. “Getting a solid-coloured dress in a shade that complements your skin tone is a power move. You’ll stand out from the rest and look radiant.”</p> <p><strong>Buy great-quality shoes</strong></p> <p>“Always spend a little more money on quality shoes, as your feet take you everywhere,” explains Vajda. “Do not cheap out on shoes. They are the ‘sole’ of your entire look.” Puns aside, she suggests investing in real leather and handmade shoes that offer trend-forward styling in a last-for-years shape.</p> <p><strong>Care for your shoes properly</strong></p> <p>Take care of the shoes you invest in by cleaning, polishing and hydrating their materials each season so they can keep you walking tall in your most treasured outfits for years to come. Try a protector spray for leather, suede and fabric shoes of all kinds. Stylists suggest using it on your favourite bags, as well.</p> <p><strong>Accessorise with an authentic bag</strong></p> <p>Both stylists stress that bags constructed from high-quality natural materials like leather and canvas are immediate style statements that shouldn’t be squandered. Vajda won’t let her clients sport knock-offs, either. “A good handbag is worth a thousand words, so don’t buy fake,” she says.</p> <p>“Save toward a quality bag that will go from day to night.” And quality doesn’t mean logos. Instead, focus on the way the bag is constructed and if you’ll be able to wear it throughout the day and with a variety of looks.</p> <p><strong>Don't neglect your hair</strong></p> <p>If your hairstyle is on-trend, don’t forget to rock it as a part of your look. You can play up your style with accessories like clips, hats and hair ties, but unforgettable shine and tamed fly-aways are the hallmarks of good hair in any era.</p> <p><strong>Elevate even the simplest basics with details</strong></p> <p>Think there’s no way to make run-of-the-mill weekend sweatshirts look more expensive? Think again. Finer details like specialty linings, prints and unique stitching can make all the difference.</p> <p><strong>Focus on radiant skin and understated makeup</strong></p> <p>Don’t forget to play up your natural features and highlight glowing, radiant skin. “Natural beauty is always in style, and you’ll look expensive just showcasing a well-rested version of your own skin,” says Vajda. “Wear makeup that shows off your own beauty, and don’t go overboard with trends.”</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://www.readersdigest.com.au/culture/15-simple-fashion-upgrades-that-make-you-look-expensive?pages=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reader's Digest</a>.  </em></p>

Beauty & Style

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How whiteness was invented and fashioned in Britain’s colonial age of expansion

<p>Fashion <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Force-of-Fashion-in-Politics-and-Society-Global-Perspectives-from-Early/Lemire/p/book/9781138274228">is political — today as in the past</a>. As Britain’s Empire dramatically expanded, people of all ranks lived with clothing and everyday objects in startlingly different ways than generations before. </p> <p>The years between 1660 and 1820 saw the expansion of the British empire and commercial capitalism. The <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/cotton-9781845202996">social politics of Britain’s cotton trade</a> mirrored profound global transformations bound up with technological and industrial revolutions, social modernization, colonialism and slavery. </p> <p>As history educators and researchers Abdul Mohamud and Robin Whitburn note, the British “<a href="https://www.bl.uk/restoration-18th-century-literature/articles/britains-involvement-with-new-world-slavery-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade">monarchy started the large-scale involvement of the English in the slave trade</a>” after 1660.</p> <p>Vast <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-British-Cotton-Trade-1660-1815-Vol-2/Lemire/p/book/9781138757943">profits poured in from areas of plantation slavery</a>, particularly from the Caribbean. The mass enslavement of Africans was at the heart of this brutal system, with laws and policing enforcing Black subjugation <a href="https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-empire/economic-consequences-of-empire/slave-resistance/">in the face of repeated resistance from enslaved</a> people.</p> <p>Western fashion reflected the racialized politics that infused this period. Indian cottons and European linens <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/global-trade-and-the-transformation-of-consumer-cultures/A7517EB8FB5003114662BA428501AB79">were now traded in ever-rising volumes</a>, feeding the vogue for lighter and potentially whiter textiles, ever more in demand. </p> <p>My scholarship explores dimensions of whiteness through material histories — how whiteness was fashioned in labour structures, routines, esthetics and everyday practices.</p> <h2>Whiteness on many scales</h2> <p>Enslaved men and women were never given white clothes, unless as part of livery (servants’ uniforms, which were sometimes very luxurious). Wearing white textiles became a marker of status in urban centres, in colonizing nations and in colonies. Textile whiteness was a transient state demanding constant renewal, shaping ecologies of style. The resulting Black/white dichotomy hardened as profits from enslavement soared, with a striking impact on culture.</p> <p>Whiteness in clothing, decor and fashion was amplified, becoming a marker of status. Elaborate washing techniques were used to achieve material goals. </p> <p>British sociologist Vron Ware emphasizes “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822381044-009">the importance of thinking about whiteness on many different scales</a>,” including “as an interconnected global system, having different inflections and implications depending on where and when it has been produced.” Accordingly, fabrics, laundry and fashion were entangled in imperial aims. </p> <h2>Pristine whiteness in garments</h2> <p>Laundering was codified in household manuals from the late 1660s, a chore overseen by housewives and housekeepers. Women with fewer options sweated over washtubs, engaged in ubiquitous labour with the aim of pristine whiteness. </p> <p>In colonial and plantation regions, where lightweight fabrics were key, Black enslaved women were tasked with this never-ending drudgery. Only a few profited personally from their fashioning skills.</p> <p>This workforce was vast. Yet few museums have invited visitors to consider the processes of soaking, bleaching, washing, blueing, starching and ironing required by historic garments. </p> <p>A recent exhibit at <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/connect/about-agnes/#about-agnes">Agnes Etherington Art Centre</a> at Queen’s University <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bDY3oy0tbA">curated by Jason Cyrus, a researcher who analyzes fashion and textile history</a>, examined <a href="https://agnes.queensu.ca/digital-agnes/video/black-bodies-white-gold-unpacking-slavery-and-north-american-cotton-production">slavery and North American cotton production</a>.</p> <h2>Laundry labour of enslaved women</h2> <p>The skilled labour of enslaved women was a core component of every plantation and an essential colonial urban trade, given the resident population and many thousands of seafarers and sojourners arriving annually in the Caribbean — all wanting clothes refreshed. </p> <p>Ports throughout the Atlantic were stocked with wash tubs and women labouring over them. Orderly material whiteness was the aim. Mary Prince recorded her thoughts about a demanding mistress in Antigua, who gave the enslaved Prince weekly “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469633299_prince">two bundles of clothes, as much as a boy could help me lift; but I could give no satisfaction</a>.”</p> <p>Prince only earned money laundering for ships’ captains during her “owners’” absence. Within port cities, including the Caribbean and imperial centres, this trade allowed some enslaved women mobility and sometimes self-emancipation. But fashioning whiteness was a fraught process, with many historical threads.</p> <h2>Colour scrubbed from recovered statues</h2> <p>From the 1750s, European fashion and artistic style was increasingly inspired by perceptions of the classical past. Countless portraits were painted of wealthy people as Greek gods, the classical past becoming, as cultural theorist Stuart Hall observed, a “myth reservoir.” These became sources <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478021223-023">for imagining Europe’s origins</a> and destiny.</p> <p>European scholars and the educated public viewed this cultural lineage as white. <a href="https://www.rom.on.ca/en/exhibitions-galleries/exhibitions/kore-670">Remnants of polychrome colouring was scrubbed</a> from recovered <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-vibrant-long-overlooked-colors-of-classical-sculptures-180980321/">Greek sculptures</a>.</p> <p>This supposed heritage of a white classical past defined <a href="https://mymodernmet.com/what-is-neoclassicism/">what became known as neoclassical</a> styles further expanding the craze for light, white gowns, a political fashion needing endless care. </p> <p>In this era, “the term classical was not neutral,” as art historian Charmaine Nelson explains, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42631206">but a racialized term</a> …” Nelson states that the category “classical” also defined the marginalization of Blackness as its antithesis.</p> <p>Today, some scholars are wrestling <a href="https://www.famsf.org/about/publications/gods-color-polychromy-ancient-world">with the legacy of racism built into classical studies</a>.</p> <h2>Racialized masquerade</h2> <p>Neoclassical gowns reflected this zeitgeist, as ladies disported themselves as Greek goddesses. Ladies’ magazines urged readers to play-act as deities. Simple socializing en vogue would not suffice. Fashion required a wider stage. </p> <p>Masquerade balls became the venue where whiteness and empire aligned, as goddesses robed in white mingled with guests in blackface or regalia appropriated from colonized peoples. </p> <p>Masquerades became staple occasions, revels led by royals, nobles and those enriched through trade and slave labour.</p> <h2>Race hierarchies enforced</h2> <p>Seemingly banal routines (and stylish affairs) reveal cultural facets of empire where race hierarchies were reinforced. In this era, everyday dress and celebratory fashions demanded relentless attention. </p> <p>These routines were enmeshed with empire and race, whether in the colonial Caribbean or a London grand masquerade. </p> <p>The proliferation of white linens and cottons were purposefully employed to enforce hierarchies. The rise of white clothing and neoclassical style can be better understood by addressing mass enslavement as an economic, political and cultural force shaping styles, determining vogues and promoting the fashions of whiteness.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-whiteness-was-invented-and-fashioned-in-britains-colonial-age-of-expansion-175027" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

Art

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Beauty secrets from a 101-year-old fashion icon

<p dir="ltr">At 101 years old, beloved fashion icon Iris Apfel has revealed she’s not slowing down as she gets older and has opened up about her personal style over the years.</p> <p dir="ltr">Known for her bold approaches to fashion and business - as well as her iconic black-rimmed glasses and statement accessories - Apfel has continued to extend her presence in the world of beauty and fashion with the launch of her first makeup collection.</p> <p dir="ltr">The eight-piece collection, including lipsticks, eyeshadow palettes and nail wraps, embodies her signature style, which she hopes will make the world a brighter place.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The world is a very grey place, and I wanted to do a happy, joyful collection with bright, bold colours to chase the blues away," she told the <em><a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/how-to-be-a-beauty-icon-when-youre-101-years-old/5TGVHTZ4TOF2NTERBMHTQAXFTI/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NZ Herald</a></em>. </p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-0f8d6349-7fff-90d5-9650-f32829a37e8c"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">"The collaboration was so much fun: they really let me play with the colours I wanted to explore."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci1LVEUsz7J/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci1LVEUsz7J/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Iris Apfel (@iris.apfel)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">When it comes to her own beauty and wellness routines, Apfel said that simplicity is key to both her confidence and her self-expression.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I don't do much for beauty. I use a very simple moisturiser on my face, and then a brightly coloured lipstick," she explained.</p> <p dir="ltr">"It's part of how I express myself, along with fashion. I put on my bright lipstick and I feel confident in myself."</p> <p dir="ltr">Even since her younger years, Apfel said her look was just as experimental as you’d expect.</p> <p dir="ltr">"I used to do my eyes up like Miss Piggy," she said, laughing.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-41b10f41-7fff-ba8f-5393-664bef19b0b6"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">"I loved heavy, big lashes, which we achieved with moustache wax. You put a chunk of it in a spoon and held a flame underneath, then you took a brush and you kept building the lashes, layer after layer, and beaded the ends. It looked great."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdBIVCyrym-/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CdBIVCyrym-/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Iris Apfel (@iris.apfel)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Though launching her own makeup at 101 is impressive, it’s the latest in a string of achievements Apfel has collected over her life.</p> <p dir="ltr">After starting as a copywriter at <em>Women’s Wear Daily</em>, Apfel began her own textile company with her husband, which saw her help decorate the White House for nine presidents and tend to the homes of Greta Gabo.</p> <p dir="ltr">At 97, she signed her first modelling deal, before creating a Barbie doll in her image in the following year.</p> <p dir="ltr">When she turned 100, she started her own line of sunglasses, an unsurprising move given the importance of eyewear to her looks.</p> <p dir="ltr">"If I'm going to have to wear glasses, I might as well have GLASSES," she explained. </p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-91cc0232-7fff-dd10-a872-f68e92fb15eb"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">"For me, glasses inspire or finish all of my looks. They are a fantastic way to find your own unique style and change things up."</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CakfknClY78/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CakfknClY78/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Iris Apfel (@iris.apfel)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">For those looking to develop their own style, Apfel said fashion should be about you and how it makes you feel - and that you shouldn’t have to spend money to do it.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Fashion should always be fun. Embrace your individuality and dress how you want to dress,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It's wonderful to look good, but if it doesn't make you feel comfortable, or it becomes a chore, then it's not worth it.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I often find that the less money you have to spend on clothes, the more inventive you are, so you end up looking more stylish.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Apfel goes to show that getting older shouldn’t stop us from looking and feeling our best, and her personal philosophy is one we can all adopt.</p> <p dir="ltr">"Youthfulness is how you feel,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“My philosophy is to live in the now – yesterday is gone, you don't know if there's even going to be a tomorrow, so you might as well enjoy today."</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-146f94e6-7fff-fc9f-4220-2f3d57549ff6"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: @iris.apfel (Instagram)</em></p>

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Mapping the labour and slavery risks in fashion supply chains

<div class="copy"> <p>How did your clothes get to you, and who was properly paid for them in the process?</p> <p>The garment industry is notorious for worker exploitation and complicated, unclear supply chains.</p> <p>Both within and without the fashion industry, forced labour, and modern slavery, is on the rise. According to the new <a href="https://publications.iom.int/books/global-estimates-modern-slavery-forced-labour-and-forced-marriage" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Global Estimates of Modern Slavery</a> report, there were 50 million people around the world living in modern slavery: 28 million in forced labour, and 22 million in forced marriages.</p> <p>This is an increase of 10 million from when the report was done in 2016 – among other things, the number has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and armed conflicts.</p> <p>What does the garment supply chain look like? <em>Cosmos</em> investigates.</p> <h2>The shape of the garment industry: four tiers (sort of)</h2> <p>“In a broad sense, when retailers talk about their supply chains, they tend to talk with tiers zero to four,” explains Dr Alice Payne, an associate professor in fashion at Queensland University of Technology.</p> <p>Tier 0 is the company’s direct operations: retail, offices, and distribution centres, for instance. Each additional tier is a layer removed from them.</p> <p>“Tier 1 is the people and the organizations constructing the garments for them – so assembling and manufacturing,” says Payne.</p> <p>Tier 2 is fabric production, while Tier 3 is the production of the yarn that makes the fabric.</p> <p>“Tier 4 is raw materials,” says Payne.</p> <p>“Natural fibres like cotton and wool, that’s all the way back to the farm, or the forests that the trees come from that are then processed into viscose material. And the petrochemical industry, which is the feedstock for polyester, nylons, acrylics and so on.”</p> <p>In reality, there aren’t clear lines between these tiers – particularly further up the supply chain.</p> <p>Even something as ubiquitous as cotton has a very complicated history.</p> <p>“You’ve got the seed inputs to grow the cotton on the farm, the cotton has to be ginned – the seed and the lint separated – and then from the ginning, it’s shipped to a spinner to make it into a yarn.</p> <p>“Then the yarn producer will ship it often to other countries to be manufactured into a cloth. At any point along the chain, it might be dyed,” says Payne.</p> <p>“They can span the world over in terms of geographic location and can be really complex,” says Abigail Munroe, a modern slavery research and policy analyst at human rights group Walk Free, which compiled the <em>Global Estimates of Modern Slavery </em>report with the United Nation’s International Labour Organization and the International Organisation for Migration.</p> <h2>The labour distribution along the supply chain</h2> <p>Workers aren’t distributed evenly across these tiers. Spindles and looms are both highly mechanised processes, making the middle tiers less labour-intensive. The raw materials in Tier 4 can be equally mechanised, or labour-intensive to make, depending on the fibre.</p> <p>Assembling garments in Tier 1, however, demands a huge workforce.</p> <p>“It’s part of the nature of cloth – it’s fluid and malleable,” says Payne.</p> <p>“In the robotics space, they talk about how it might take months to teach a machine to fold a t -shirt because it’s just such a such a very difficult thing to manoeuvre and manipulate cloth.”</p> <p>Each seam on your clothes needs to be guided manually through a sewing machine – which is something of a boon for poorer countries wanting to bring in more industry.</p> <p>“The textile industry is often the first rung on the ladder for a country that’s industrialising,” says Payne.</p> <p>“What’s an industry to bring into a country when you’ve got a large labour force? Well, often garment assembly, because it’s fairly light machinery.”</p> <p>But this also comes with risks.</p> <h2>Who gets paid</h2> <p>According to the <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/poverty-wages" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Clean Clothes Campaign</a>, a T-shirt which sells for €29 (A$43) sends €0.18 (A$0.27) back to the Bangladeshi garment worker who sewed it.</p> <p>Walk Free’s <a href="https://www.walkfree.org/reports/beyond-compliance-in-the-garment-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>Beyond Compliance in the Garment Industry</em></a> report has found similar levels of low payment across the supply chain.</p> <p>“In our assessment, workers would need to be earning almost 40% more to have their basic needs met,” says Munroe.</p> <p>Exploitation may be worse in the more distant tiers.</p> <p>“In general, across any kind of industry, workers further down the supply chains tend to face increased modern slavery risks,” says Munroe.</p> <p>“That can be for a number of reasons – some of these being that they’re more likely to work in the informal economy, and they’re more likely to be invisible to policies designed to protect them.”</p> <p><iframe title="Huh? Science Explained" src="https://omny.fm/shows/huh-science-explained/playlists/podcast/embed?selectedClip=c7003c2f-954f-4ebf-b826-af090009d3ac&amp;style=cover&amp;autoplay=0&amp;list=0" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0"></iframe></p> <h2>Tracing slavery</h2> <p>Governments have taken steps to make companies monitor these supply chains, but there are still gaps in the legislation.</p> <p>In Australia, for instance, the <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00153" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2018 Modern Slavery Act</a> requires companies with an annual revenue over A$100 million to produce annual reports on their supply chains and modern slavery risks within those chains. The UK has <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">similar legislation</a>.</p> <p>Walk Free’s annual <em>Beyond Compliance </em>reports, track these disclosures and so far, they’ve looked at the hospitality, finance, and garment industries.</p> <p>While most of the garment companies in this year’s analysis had statements addressing modern slavery (an improvement on the hospitality and finance industries), 33% still didn’t meet minimum requirements set out by the acts. Over a quarter of companies didn’t produce any supply chain disclosure at all, while among those that did disclose, only 35% went beyond Tier 1.</p> <p>“There’s actually no penalties for companies that are within the threshold of the act, but don’t actually produce a statement,” says Munroe.</p> <p>And, even if those requirements are met, there’s little motivation to improve on reports.</p> <p>“We certainly see statements that are clearly being used as a box ticking activity,” says Munroe.</p> <p>“For both of those acts, even the Australian act which has more involved requirements, it’s completely disclosure-based. So simply reporting that the company needs to do more in relation to supply chain mapping or risk assessment – that’s enough.”</p> <p>Stricter legislation, such as the regulations <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/european-union-releases-draft-mandatory-human-rights-and-environmental-due-diligence" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">currently being proposed by the EU</a>, might include financial penalties for failing to comply, alongside obligations to prevent and mitigate human rights abuses right through the supply chain.</p> <p>The Australian government is <a href="https://consultations.ag.gov.au/crime/modern-slavery-act-review/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">currently reviewing</a> its modern slavery act, with a consultation period closing in just over a month.</p> <p>Future changes to the act might increase compliance – but for now, most of the places you buy clothes from aren’t making it clear where the garments have come from – or who’s being properly paid to make them.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=213724&amp;title=Mapping+the+labour+and+slavery+risks+in+fashion+supply+chains" width="1" height="1" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/people/garment-supply-chain-slavery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Ellen Phiddian. </em></p> </div>

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Can luxury fashion brands ever really be inclusive?

<p>Luxury goods tend to be associated with exclusivity rather than inclusivity. But thanks to the universal scrutiny of social media and consumer activism, high-end brands are under increasing pressure to be seen as companies who care. </p> <p>Some have spent large sums on initiatives which address environmental concerns, or used their expertise to help deal with the pandemic. </p> <p>The Kering group (which owns Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen) has, for example, <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/sustainability/kering-shines-light-on-sustainability-efforts-luxury">set a target</a> to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2025. </p> <p>In response to COVID-19, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-52415983">fashion house Burberry donated</a> more than 100,000 pieces of PPE to the NHS and healthcare charities. Meanwhile, luxury firm LVMH used its perfume manufacturing facilities to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardkestenbaum/2020/03/15/lvmh-converting-its-perfume-factories-to-make-hand-sanitizer/">make free hand sanitiser</a> for the healthcare system in France. </p> <p>Yet it remains unclear whether consumers can reconcile the exclusive nature of luxury brands – selling at prices many cannot afford – with a public image of sustainability and environmental or social awareness. A <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781351287807-8/luxury-purchasers-really-insensitive-sustainable-development-jean-no%C3%ABl-kapferer-anne-michaut-denizeau">range</a> of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.10.029">studies</a> has shown that consumers are ambivalent about such efforts. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41262-019-00165-7">Research</a> into millennials’ attitudes showed that younger consumers even see the concepts of luxury and sustainability as contradictory.</p> <p>This is understandable, for some brands’ apparent attempts to tackle societal challenges have come after they received widespread criticism for their own apparent failings. </p> <p>Gucci for example, has a US$1.5 million (£1 million) <a href="https://hypebeast.com/2020/6/gucci-equilibrium-initiative-environmental-profit-loss-report-2019">plan</a> to support young designers from underrepresented backgrounds. But it was launched after the brand faced <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/feb/07/gucci-withdraws-jumper-blackface-balaclava">accusations of racism</a> over a jumper design. </p> <p>And while Prada has spoken out against racial injustice on social media, the company has also been <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prada-was-slammed-over-merchandise-deemed-racist-now-it-will-n1131466">forced to apologise</a> for merchandise that was deemed racist. Dior, meanwhile, launched a message of support and solidarity accompanied with a black background. But again, it comes after allegations of <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/dior-pulls-sauvage-campaign-from-instagram-after-facing-appropriation-backlash">cultural appropriation</a>.</p> <p>A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/04/style/Black-representation-fashion.html?smid=tw-share">New York Times report</a> showed that among top designers and creative directors in the fashion world, only four are black. Models and photographers from diverse backgrounds are also <a href="https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/black-representation-fashion/">severely underrepresented</a> in the luxury fashion industry.</p> <p>Designer Virgil Abloh, head of men’s fashion at Louis Vuitton, is one of the few black figures to have reached the summits of a luxury brand. He <a href="https://www.numero.com/en/mode-homme/virgil-abloh-louis-vuitton-off-white-diversite-interview">has commented</a>: “Diversity isn’t just a question of gender and ethnicity. It’s a question of experience. It brings new ideas to the table. And it would be good if the fashion industry actually listened and took them on board.” </p> <h2>Mutually exclusive?</h2> <p>Against this complex backdrop, we asked members of the British public for their thoughts on inclusivity campaigns from luxury brands. Overall, consumers – particularly those on lower incomes – had a negative response.</p> <p>The majority of the people we surveyed (87%) believe luxury brands would fare better at becoming more inclusive by focusing on fair pay and workers’ rights. </p> <p>Efforts towards climate change initiatives were also popular (79%), as were work aimed at reducing racial and gender inequality. </p> <p>Respondents also welcomed the idea of luxury brands selecting partners and suppliers in response to social and political situations. For instance, <a href="https://www.campaignasia.com/article/nike-adidas-burberry-uniqlo-ensnared-in-xinjiang-cotton-controversy/468578">Burberry’s</a>decision to boycott cotton from the Xinjiang region of China over <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-announces-business-measures-over-xinjiang-human-rights-abuses">alleged human right abuses</a>.</p> <p>Overall, our survey suggests that – despite some progress – much remains to be done by luxury brands. And the question remains over whether an industry which revels in exclusivity can embrace inclusivity in a way that drives real societal change? </p> <p>As consumers increasingly demand transition towards an inclusive society, a unique window has opened for luxury brands to become better agents of social change by aligning their missions, values and strategies to social purpose. Luxury brands are in a key position to lead business action by leveraging their cultural authority. </p> <p>They have an opportunity to use their influence and actions to advance public debate and accelerate behavioural change. If they don’t take it, any gestures towards inclusivity risk being seen as nothing more than an opportunistic exercise in public relations and image.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-luxury-fashion-brands-ever-really-be-inclusive-165187" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.</em></p>

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Fast fashion: why your online returns may end up in landfill – and what can be done about it

<p>Fashion has a notorious environmental footprint, accounting for up to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-fashion-industry-environmental-impact/">10%</a> of global carbon dioxide output. This is exacerbated by a fast fashion business model which encourages the frequent purchase of low-priced and non-durable items. </p> <p>Around <a href="https://fashionunited.uk/news/retail/return-rates-are-on-the-rise/2022020661142">30%</a> of online purchases are subsequently returned, much of which goes to landfill. In 2020, an estimated <a href="https://www.optoro.com/2021/02/03/returns-report-powering-resilient-retail-in-2020/">2.6 million tonnes</a> of returns were disposed of this way in the US alone. The problem has become so notorious that the online retailer Boohoo recently followed a number of high street brands in starting to <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62140633">charge for returns</a> in order to discourage them.</p> <p>But what are the reasons for high returns and why are many returned items not being re-sold?</p> <p>The pandemic fundamentally changed the way we shop, with the temporary closure of physical stores representing a boon for online retailers. However, online retail’s surging market share has origins in long-standing fast fashion marketing practices. The premium placed on newness, low prices, and both free delivery and returns, all encourage customers to purchase multiple options with the knowledge they can return items freely (known as <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/bracketing-fashions-hidden-returns-problem#:%7E:text=The%20process%2C%20known%20as%20bracketing%2C%20is%20weighing%20heavy%20on%20retailers.&amp;text=To%20receive%20the%20Vogue%20Business,and%20send%20back%20the%20rest.">“bracketing”).</a></p> <p>Buy-now-pay-later schemes, such as <a href="https://www.klarna.com/uk/business/">Klarna</a>, that allow customers to order without upfront payment have accelerated online consumption. Research indicates that by offering such “payment solutions”, retailers will typically see a <a href="https://www.klarna.com/assets/sites/2/2020/01/15150545/Shopify2.0_US_final_2.pdf">68% increase</a> in average order value. </p> <p><a href="https://securecdn.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Buy-Now-Pay-Later-February-2020-Tracker.pdf">Industry research suggests</a> that cart abandonment rates decrease by nearly 40% after the introduction of payment solutions. Discount events such as “Black Friday” also drive sales, with fashion accounting for around <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/industries/retail-consumer/insights/festive-predictions.html">one-third</a> of all Black Friday spend.</p> <h2>Fast fashion is synonymous with returns</h2> <p>Despite the appeal of low prices and discounts, cheaply manufactured fast fashion items can typically exhibit quality and fit issues, so are synonymous with returns. Impulsive spending, driven by discounts, also often leads to <a href="https://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/finder-deals-buyers-remorse-1234652035/">regret</a>, again increasing the incidence of return. The <a href="https://www.statista.com/forecasts/997848/returns-of-online-purchases-by-category-in-the-uk">32% return rate</a> for clothing orders therefore dwarfs that of other e-commerce sectors, comparing to just 7% in consumer electronics.</p> <p>For retailers, processing returns is also fraught with uncertainty and complexity. Which items will be returned, and in what state, is unknown. Often, once used, little can be done to make them desirable for re-purchase.</p> <p>This is particularly true in the case of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2019/sep/18/is-wardrobing-ever-acceptable-shoppers">wardrobing</a>”, where a purchased item is worn once before being returned. Retailers not only encounter financial loss through reprocessing, they risk a spoiled <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/fashion-news/pretty-little-thing-leggings-arrived-22675252">reputation</a> if worn or damaged items are recirculated. </p> <p>ASOS previously announced that they would clamp down on “wardrobing” by closing the accounts of fraudulent returners. However, the threat of a bad review often leaves the retailer with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/jul/16/buy-now-try-later-online-clothing-sales-boom-raises-qualms-over-returns">little option</a> but to refund.</p> <p>Many retailers instead sell these returns on to liquidators, who turn the obsolete goods into fast cash. A cursory look on eBay reveals dozens of pallets of “Amazon customer returns” available to the highest bidder.</p> <h2>The challenges facing retailers</h2> <p>Both the cost of processing returns, and their increased volume, represent a challenge for retailers. The substantial reprocessing costs involved in product returns means that for fast fashion items, they often exceed the potential resale revenue. The remuneration of comparatively high-cost domestic workers within labour-intensive returns reprocessing is widely considered responsible for this. </p> <p>Getting rid of returns therefore often constitutes the most cost-effective decision. An ITV <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds">investigation</a> into Amazon’s Dunfermline warehouse claimed the online retailer disposed of tens of thousands of returned consumer goods each week. Amazon said none of its items went to landfill but were instead donated, recycled or incinerated for energy recovery.</p> <p>The fashion industry collectively produces <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-0039-9.pdf">over 92 million tonnes</a> of textile waste per year. In the US alone, clothing returns <a href="https://eco-age.com/resources/tackling-the-unsustainable-rate-of-returns/">create more</a> annual carbon dioxide emissions than 3 million cars. </p> <p>Carbon dioxide is initially emitted through the collection of returns, before increasing as returns are either incinerated or deposited in landfill. Due to the prevalence of synthetic fibres in fast fashion, returns can take <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7796070/">up to 100 years</a> to fully decompose, emitting carbon dioxide and methane in the process, as well as leaching harmful substances into the surrounding soil.</p> <h2>How are retailers tackling the returns issue?</h2> <p>While the environmental implications of product returns are clear, fashion retailers also have a financial incentive to tackle the issue of costly returns management.</p> <p>Due to the complexities surrounding reprocessing, fashion retailers are increasingly outsourcing the responsibility to specialist firms, such as ReBound Returns, which work with retailers to make the returns process more sustainable. </p> <p>ReBound encourage retailers to donate returned consumer goods to charity through their ReBound Regift facility. This has so far facilitated charitable donations worth <a href="https://www.reboundreturns.com/service/regift?hsCtaTracking=8e729b68-7056-4ddd-a698-e1772cd6f777%7Cf011996e-1bad-46d8-8148-e886d482f03a">£190 million</a>. ASOS <a href="https://www.asos.com/responsible-fashion/packaging-and-delivery/6-ways-our-returns-are-more-responsible/">states</a> that 97% of their returns are now resold, and no items are sent to landfill.</p> <p>As Boohoo’s recent move shows, several online retailers have attempted to pass the cost of returns onto customers. While the reasoning for this is primarily financial, the impact of similar policies in improving customers’ environmental consciousness is well-known. Since 2015, plastic bag usage has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/10p-bag-charge-turns-the-tide-on-plastic-waste">dropped 97%</a> in England’s main supermarkets, following the introduction of a small charge.</p> <p>Despite calls for greater sustainability within the fashion industry, fast fashion continues to flourish. Should marketing practices that encourage waste and fuel emissions persist, the fashion industry will retain its unwanted reputation as a significant contributor to climate change. Retailers must reconsider the unintended effects of the leniency afforded by their returns policies, balancing the need for customer retention with environmental consciousness.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Shutterstock</em></p> <p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/fast-fashion-why-your-online-returns-may-end-up-in-landfill-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-188090" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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Diana dubbed an “icon” of this winter fashion trend

<p dir="ltr">Those hitting the slopes this winter have been inspired by a surprising fashion icon, with Princess Diana’s iconic ‘après-ski’ style being adopted on the snow and runway.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-7b41aac2-7fff-fea6-b3e4-08b490b05cd4"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">Though many of us might turn to snow jackets and pants, insulating thermals, and helmets for a trip to the snow, the trend of ‘après-ski’ - meaning the ‘after ski’ socialising Diana is considered an icon of - has even made an appearance in Balenciaga’s latest runway show, starring Bella Hadid in a faux snow field.</p> <blockquote class="instagram-media" style="background: #FFF; border: 0; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width: 540px; min-width: 326px; padding: 0; width: calc(100% - 2px);" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-permalink="https://www.instagram.com/p/CbXoLJ9g93L/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" data-instgrm-version="14"> <div style="padding: 16px;"> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="padding: 19% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: block; height: 50px; margin: 0 auto 12px; width: 50px;"> </div> <div style="padding-top: 8px;"> <div style="color: #3897f0; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: 550; line-height: 18px;">View this post on Instagram</div> </div> <div style="padding: 12.5% 0;"> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;"> <div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: 8px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg);"> </div> </div> <div style="margin-left: auto;"> <div style="width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);"> </div> <div style="width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);"> </div> </div> </div> <div style="display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;"> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;"> </div> <div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;"> </div> </div> <p style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 0; margin-top: 8px; overflow: hidden; padding: 8px 0 7px; text-align: center; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a style="color: #c9c8cd; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 17px; text-decoration: none;" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CbXoLJ9g93L/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A post shared by Bella 🦋 (@bellahadid)</a></p> </div> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">Leather pants, chunky knits, faux fur headbands and stirrup leggings are mainstays of this trend, with celebrity stylist Elliot Garnaut noting that it is all “about transitioning” from the slopes to socialising.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The key to a chic après look is incorporating your pieces from the slopes: your ski jacket becomes your going-out jacket,” Mr Garnaut told <em><a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/fashion-trends/bye-bye-helmet-apresski-style-you-need-to-know-this-snow-season/news-story/1d581d07e6e1aa3ec2d6689632e3c8ab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news.com.au</a></em>.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Ditch the thermals and skivvys from day, replace with an oversized knitted turtle neck for evening.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Bye bye helmet, woollen hat or beanie, replace your face covering with your favourite scarf. It’s as simple as replacing your technical elements with those of fashion items.”</p> <p dir="ltr">LA-based Australian luxury fashion expert Gab Waller said her clients have requested “unique pieces” to dress up their post-skiing outfits, adding that ski capsules are a feature across the major fashion houses each year.</p> <p dir="ltr">“As always, whatever the celebs wear on their ski holidays tends to influence the slope style for the season,” Ms Waller explained.</p> <p dir="ltr">“So when Kendall Jenner wore New Zealand brand, Entire Studio, snowboarding we got several requests for their oversized puffers.”</p> <p dir="ltr">She pointed to Diana - known for styling thick headbands and red snowsuits - as an icon of this trend.</p> <p dir="ltr">“I am a huge fan of the iconic looks by Princess Diana from the 90s,” she said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“My tip for great après-ski style is definitely to stay warm but play with colour and accessories to accentuate your look.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-f292b84b-7fff-30bd-f03c-f69802f3c0dc"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“A bold ski goggle or helmet goes a long way to making a look pop.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/07/diana-apres-ski.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Princess Diana’s bold snow-suits and ski attire have made her an icon of the après-ski style. Image: Getty Images</em></p> <p dir="ltr">Unsurprisingly, this trend isn’t a new one, with <em>Vogue Australia</em> fashion features director Alice Birrell noting that après-ski was at the fore in the 1960s.</p> <p dir="ltr">“From cocktails on the slopes at ice bars, to stand-up picnics and drinks by the (heated) pool, there was an occasion to dress for and, continuing through to today, it demanded comfort as much as style,” Ms Birrell said.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Après-ski means high-winter style cues like faux fur-accents, luxurious soft knits, with an undercurrent of sportswear; think athleisure with the glamour factor dialled up.</p> <p dir="ltr">“More than anything, it’s an attitude. In a throwback to those salad days of the jet-set, it’s about luxuriating in the post-ski glow of knowing you’ve put in a decent session on the slopes and rewarding yourself with a hot buttered rum (the drink de jour back then) in an outfit that signals elevated ease.”</p> <p dir="ltr">For those looking to adopt this attitude in their own outfits, Ms Birrell suggested trying a matching knit set in a monochrome or matching print.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Those who prefer the sportier side of ski are leaning into second-skin jumpsuits – think a modern catsuit worn under boots- or leggings,” she continued.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Look for accents that nod to performance wear like contrast colour details, or high-vis colours. For accessories it’s oversized sunglasses – to block out the glare – and the return of the moon boot.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-1cd8e302-7fff-5c7a-38a9-efe6aee70ff0"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Getty Images / @bellahadid (Instagram)</em></p>

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See the stars who stunned at Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture

<p dir="ltr">Paris Fashion Week sees stars, models, and celebrities of all sorts embrace the latest trends, and last week’s series of shows for the Haute Couture collection were no exception.</p> <p dir="ltr">With Haute Couture representing the intersection between tradition and innovation, those in attendance took the brief and ran with it.</p> <p dir="ltr">Stars mixed sheer panelling and 3D structures, and played with form, with black being the dominant colour.</p> <p dir="ltr">Notable looks included Robbie Williams’ floor-length black cape, British model Jourdan Dunn’s gravity-defying, box-like gown, and Naomi Campbells’ floor-length black trench and satiny leggings.</p> <p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, the Princess of Thailand, Sirivannavari Nariatana, was among several attendees who bucked the all-black trend, instead opting for a double denim look complete with sky-blue heels and a gold chain.</p> <p dir="ltr">Check out more stylish looks below. </p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-7412b182-7fff-b63f-4c01-af9fb901fc36"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Images: Getty Images</em></p>

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