Fashion

Thankfully these products don’t come with a five-figure price tag.

Hermés is the latest luxury fashion house to expand its offering and dabble in the realm of beauty. It has been revealed today that the luxury French house is gearing up to release its first products in March as part of Hermès Beauty – a first in its 183 year history.

As for what those first products are? A line of lipsticks. Called Rouge Hermès, the lipsticks will include 24 shades in matte and satin finishes. The former features an array of shades inspired by the house’s most famous handbag, the Birkin, whilst the latter range draws its inspirations from Hermès scarves. Astonishingly, the shades were chosen from 75,000 silk swatches and 900 leather shades, meaning there’s a large array of shades on offer from neutrals to reds and purples. Plus, Hermès’ in-house perfumer Christine Nagel has created a light, custom scent for the products.

The lipsticks are housed in chic tubes (of course) finished with colour accents. Most importantly, however, the cases are made without any plastic – instead, they’re made from metal from the brand’s manufacturing process (aka the same metal used to make its legendary arm candy). AND they’re refillable.

Whilst exact Canadian pricing is not yet known, a lipstick is expected to cost roughly $88, whilst a refill will cost around $55 based on US pricing available at present.

In addition to the lipsticks, the brand is also releasing a range of complementary accessories including a lip brush, leather carry case and a mirror/necklace hybrid.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the lipstick launch is just the beginning. The brand also plans to launch “foundations, and eye and cheek colours” in the future, and also hinted at a skincare line. It has confirmed that it will launch new products every six months, beginning from March. Prepare your wallets accordingly.

People are wigging out over these wigs.

On Friday, Japanese fashion brand Commes des Garçons held a Fall 2020 menswear presentation in Paris — but it wasn’t the looks that rankled people on Twitter.

The show featured models in oversized lace-front wigs designed to resemble cornrows, which were primarily worn by white models.

Social media users were quick to call out the brand for appropriating black culture. “lmaoooo why?!” tweeted Canadian fashion designer Tani, in a post that has since earned over 2,000 likes and nearly 600 retweets.

“Who the f - - k thought this was a good idea?!” tweeted one user, while another said, “Wtf am I looking at?? A male Rachel Dolezal??”

Critics also took issue with the wigs’ sizes. In Fashionista, Whitney Bauck writes, “These wigs also were often not fitted all that well to the models’ heads, taking the look from offensive to offensive and messy-looking, which adds insult to injury with regards to a hairstyle that highlights neatness.”

This isn’t the brand’s first brush with race-related controversy. In 2018, Commes des Garçons was accused of avoiding working with black models.

Reps for the brand didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment.

Rick Owens runway shows are spectacles before they even begin—packed with people, most of whom are not in the fashion world or perhaps only amorphously connected to it, dressed and posing in head-to-toe-to-prosthetic-cheekbones Owens. Many designers have cults, but Owens’s is a true tribe, a group of people with a common language, understanding of each other, and a way of moving through the world (most recently, on those Larry Elastic Kiss boots). Even if you just wear a piece of his clothing and your eyes aren’t masked with conceptual eyeliner, you tap into that tribe, and assert your connection to it above any other clothing concerns. (Like…“Is my leg covered?” This season, just one is!)

“A lot of times, I just see myself as an example of what everybody’s doing,” Owens said backstage after the show. “And if anybody’s responding to my clothes, or anything that I talk about it, it’s just because they relate.”

Owens’s show was an exuberant testament to the power of performance—the joy of displaying yourself—and it was also the fruit of personal revelation. “Every collection I do is autobiographical,” he said. “About 10 years ago, I was a lot more introspective, and, you know, I’ve changed. It’s not as if I’m not as into myself in a way—I mean, I’m into myself, but now I feel like my responsibility is to participate a bit more, instead of, like, analyzing myself. Analyzing yourself is indulgent.” He continued: “Introspection is a good thing, but then the opposite of that is artificial beings. And am I going there? I’m not sure! I might be.” Are you comfortable with that ambiguity? “I’m not sure!”

He zoned in more specifically on what he called “just the generation of selfies. It’s about performing for other people. And is that a good thing? A bad thing? I mean, the whole Instagram thing, in my head, it’s just another form of communication. That’s like the joy of life. And that’s the reason that we are here. We’re here to communicate and we’re here to caress each other, and it’s a different way of doing that. Sometimes it gets cringe-y. Why? It just does.” He paused. “And I have no answers!”

Performance, he went on, “can be vanity, or it can be bringing something to the party. A contribution. So I’m just kind of tussling with myself like, what am I really doing?” That manifested in a revealing collection of with one-legged, one-shouldered jumpsuits like the ones Kansai Yamamoto made for Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, and leathers and silks in gold, blue, and Bowie-hair orange. An outrageous series of coats and jackets with “LOOK AT ME BITCH!”-sized shoulders was the perfect icon for the show’s energy—true Owens obsessives will love it, and clout-chasing Instagrammers will want to wear it, too. To return to Owens’s own question: is that good, or bad? Who knows! It’s refreshing to make and see art without issuing a moral judgment! As Owens said, “There’s a lot of stress, but the world has always existed teetering between collapse and control.”

Owens fans are true outsiders, whose performative nature emphasizes their marvelous otherworldliness. I don’t know if this has ever been more valuable in fashion. We all know and like the same brands—even Emily Ratajkowski and Sebastian Bear-McClard are wearing Online Ceramics now!—and at perhaps no point in history have we believed so fervently and without much consideration that “popular” is the same thing as “cool.” The designers and stylish people who doggedly pursue their own vision are both urgent and eternal.

Enter Yohji Yamamoto, a man who does the same thing every season and still manages to do something different: this time, officer coats, dangling chains that almost looked like loose strands of pearls, swags of fabric hung from the hip. Pure poetry, as usual, devoid of novelty and filled with quiet ideas. Yamamoto used to describe himself as anti-trend or anti-fashion—he has never been interested in interpreting or responding to the times, but keeping a distance that allowed his work to express itself pristinely. Yet Yamamoto said backstage that “I kept saying I’m an outsider. Now the vocabulary is not enough. And I’m angry about what’s going on in fashion, so I have become partisan.” Yamamoto’s archival pieces are becoming hot on the secondary market among fashion nerds, he was on the most recent cover of fashion geek mag System, and other collections shown this week, from Hed Mayner to OAMC to Valentino, showed his influence. In a sense, Yamamoto’s appeal and power is that he stands apart from the fracas of fashion and its sometimes mindless pursuit of novelty. Shouldn’t us young people be capable of engaging with our great designers as more than just fashion godfathers?

Clare Waight Keller showed a remarkable Givenchy collection yesterday—in the Givenchy couture salon, a clean and disciplined blend of streetwise pieces and ravishing demonstrations of her obsessive, careful tailoring. “It’s all about the small details,” she said backstage, and indeed, the intimate setting allowed the audience to really see the perfection of the construction and the minute details that take everything over the top. As the artistic director of a major global brand under the LVMH umbrella, Waight Keller has less independence than Owens and Yamamoto, but this show really demonstrated the ardent pursuit of her old school couturier intuition. Like Owens, funnily enough, she is busy creating performative clothing that seems like a blast to wear, event clothing for which getting dressed is the event itself. In the boys club of big Parisian houses, her couturier’s touch just looks more and more radical every season—an individual vision versus a clout chase. Her tribe, of course, is made up of the clients of her couture atelier. This idea of performative dressing is one of the most exciting in fashion right now, a blend of personal style and a taste for the extreme, but remember: it’s not about getting the latest or Instagram-decreed greatest. Find your tribe, and go all the way in.

With Air Max Day being right around the corner, these atmos-inspired Air Max 1 customs by Malcolm Garret really caught our attention.

Influenced by the iconic Nike Air Max 1 Atmos Elephant that last dropped in 2017, Malcolm takes it up a notch by giving you the liberty to switch the style up a bit. The image above show that the shoe also comes with a handful of removable Swooshes done in an array of colors so you can switch up the look however you please. A mismatched Swoosh motif perhaps? The rest of the shoe consists of a White, Black and Grey color scheme done on the mesh and leather upper. A White midsole and Gum outsole complete the look.

Thoughts on these bad boys? Peep Malcolm Garret’s IG to see his latest work.

At Paris Fashion Week earlier today, fashion brand Comme des Garçons came under fire for their AW 2020 show, sending models, mostly white, down the runway wearing cornrowed, lace front wigs, according to Essence.

Upon the release of photos from the collection, many online called out the brand. “I feel exactly how these wigs look: tired, disinterested in being here,” tweeted style and beauty blogger Tasha James. Another twitter user shared a thought about the reasoning behind this, writing, “they do it on purpose now to attract attention to their new lines… it’s outrage marketing.”

This is not the first time that Comme des Garçons has been called out for being non-inclusive. In February of 2018, writer Martin Lerme of Heroine wrote the article, “Why Won’t Comme des Garçons Hire Black Models?” After researching the brand’s past collections, he found that: “After reviewing the 54 runway shows (excluding the as yet unavailable Fall 1991 season) on Vogue, which includes a total of 2,533 looks, I was only able to identify 5 black models—a total of 32 appearances comprising 1.26 percent of the total runway exits—over the entire covered time span.”

The fashion industry has failed Black people time and time again, routinely appropriating and capitalizing off of Black culture, including the use of traditionally black hairstyles on non-Black models. It is impossible that a major fashion label in 2020 is unaware of what cultural appropriation is, and to see a situation like this occur during Men’s Paris Fashion Week clearly shows the industry still has a long way to do.

Teen Vogue reached out to Comme des Garçons for comment.

Karlie Kloss, fresh off of going viral thanks to a Kushner affiliation reminder on Project Runway, addressed all that on an episode of Watch What Happens Live this week.

“I was honored to be one of the first memes of the decade, but honestly the real tragedy of this whole thing is that no one is talking about how terrible that dress was. … And no, I would not wear that dress to any dinner,” Kloss said of the Josh Kushner marriage reminder, which was delivered by exiting contestant Tyler Neasloney.

From there, host Andy Cohen asked Kloss to clarify whether she was “on the same page politically” as the Trump-aligned Kushners. 

“Andy, I’m sure I’m not the only person in this country who does not necessarily agree with their family on politics,” she said. “I voted as a Democrat in 2016 and I plan to do the same in 2020.”

The Project Runway moment, embedded above for easy revisiting, saw Neasloney being told by judges that they simply couldn’t see Kloss wearing his dress design out in public. In response, Neasloney asked “Not even to dinner with the Kushners?” and promptly went down in 2020 viral history.

In a tweet shared after the episode started making the rounds, Kloss did not address the Kushner bit, choosing instead to simply wish the contestant “all the best” in the future.

Perfect for the 700 months we still have left of winter.

For those of you who hold a keen interest in Meghan Markle’s wardrobe, we’ve got some good news for your Friday. Today, the Duchess was spotted driving to Victoria International Airport wearing one of her old-faithful coats from Canadian outerwear brand Soia & Kyo.

Markle was first spotted in the jacket back in 2017 when she on set for Suits in Toronto, and it’s clearly remained a favourite in her wardrobe since then. The best part is that the jacket is still available as part of the brand’s winter line-up. The Saundra Coat ($695) comes in army (which Meghan is wearing), black, indigo and sandstone and is finished in an A-line cut with a sherpa trimmed hood, detachable fur lining, fleece-lined pockets and leather trims. It’s made with 90 per cent down and 10 per cent feather – meaning it’s (unsurprisingly) perfect for our long winters here in the North.

It’s not the first time the Duchess has worn the brand, having been photographed in various coats from the Quebec label over the years.

Today, the Duchess was spotted driving herself to the airport (accompanied by a member of her security team) to pick up friend Heather Dorak. Dorak is the founder of Pilates Platinum, which Meghan visited when in L.A, and attended the royal wedding back in 2018.

It’s the second time Meghan has been spotted in public since she and Prince Harry announced their plans to split their time between the UK and Canada moving forward. Earlier this week she was seen boarding a seaplane bound for Vancouver where she visited the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre and Justice for Girls to learn more about the work the teams are doing in the community.

It is expected that an announcement regarding details of the pair’s new life will be released at some point today. Watch this space.

Kat Von D will no longer be involved with her eponymous makeup brand, the company announced Thursday.

The brand — which was founded by the famed tattoo artist and “LA Ink” star 12 years ago — will now go by the name KVD Vegan Beauty, effective immediately.

Von D, 37, said the reason for her sudden departure is so she can focus on mothering her 1-year-old son, Leafar Von Drachenberg Reyes, as well as other creative pursuits such as her music career and recently launched vegan shoe brand, Von D Shoes.

“This past year has been one of great change for me,” she wrote in an Instagram post to her “dearest fans.”

“As many of you know, I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy, launched my vegan shoe line, and am now busy prepping to release my long-awaited album in the spring, followed by an international tour!” Von D said.

“As much as I wish I could balance all of this, on top of continuing my makeup line, it has become clear to me that I just can’t do everything at the maximum capacity,” she continued. “It’s hard to admit this, since I’ve always said ‘You can do everything and anything.’ But I don’t think admitting one’s limits is a bad thing.”

The goth queen sold off her shares, and the beauty conglomerate Kendo — which is also responsible for Marc Jacobs Beauty, Fenty Beauty and Ole Henriksen — is now the makeup line’s sole owner.

“This was not an easy decision, but after careful consideration, I decided I wanted the makeup line to continue to thrive and grow, and Kendo is primed to do just that,” she said.

Von D wants her cult following to rest assured that the makeup line — which has over 250 products — will continue meeting the same quality and standards.

“The transition for you, my loyal customers, will be seamless,” she wrote.

She also thanked her fans for believing in her passion to bring an edge to the beauty sphere.

“I was able to create a makeup line that made outsiders like me feel like we have a place in this ‘beauty’ world, and gave myself and others the tools to express ourselves in our own unique way, whether it was embraced by the majority or not,” she wrote. “And I just couldn’t have done any of this without you!”

Over the last year, Von D’s reputation has come under fire after she was accused of being an anti-vaxxer and an anti-Semite. In an 11-minute video posted to YouTube in May 2019, Von D denied the claims, saying they are “extremely offensive and hurtful.”

Von D continued to explain the rumors, first saying how her reality show “LA Ink” threatened a male artist on “Miami Ink,” which led to him harassing her on set. She claimed he even sent an unsolicited photo of his genitals. She alleged that the same man forged an “anti-Semitic message” on her head shot and showed it to the network.

The tattoo artist also dated “Monster Garage” star Jesse James, who wore a Nazi officer’s hat with two fingers under his nose that resembles a “Hitler mustache” in a 2010 photo.

Von D also explained how she originally considered not vaccinating her son, but has since revised her choice.

“After doing a bunch of research, naturally I experienced some hesitancy,” she said. “If I would have known that I would have let so many people down with that I would have never ever shared where we were at with that at that time.”

For Thom Browne, provocation is a source of delight. His shrunken suit remains essential for insiders, and perplexing to the unaware. And then there are his wildly expressive runway shows, the most recent of which pitched men into football-shaped platform shoes and panniers affixed with codpieces, which continue to cause outsize reactions among shocked and angry men outside of the glass of fashion. Browne doesn’t much care. “If they knew how not serious I was about it, I think they would be so surprised,” he said, bemused, in an interview in his Paris showroom earlier this week. “I think they’re thinking, like, I’m trying to like change how masculine men are. One, I don’t care that much. And two, [the Thom Browne men] actually look more masculine than you probably do.”

The latest entry into his farcical canon is a series of images, inspired by the candlelit splendor of Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. (They’ll hang in the brand’s Paris showroom, where buyers come to see and purchase from the collection.) Browne imagined the scene in a sort of fever dream: a dinner party in a mansion, where a group of well-dressed animals (models in hats designed by the legendary milliner Stephen Jones) arrive to find the spécialité de la maison is a human. Specifically, the very “sweet”—in Browne’s words—model Rocky Harwood, who poses on the dinner table with impressively appetizing stillness. His body is in fact a fondant cake created by a London baker to resemble Browne’s classic suit jacket, cardigan, and shirting combo; during our interview, the sliced cake—layers of red, white, and blue sponge; Mary Berry would be very impressed—sat in the middle of the table, and I tried a piece (best human I’ve had in years!). The images show the narrative from arrival to glee club portrait to cocktails to the main feast, with all the men dressed in Browne’s “Harris tweeds—all our classic fabrics and details. A Bermuda short suit, a pleated skirt suit, a sack skirt suit. All the classic ideas that I have in all my collections.”

David Garcia, (@DaveToldYaSo on IG) is back at it again with yet another clean custom. Shown above, this Air Jordan 3 Tinker custom pays homage to the Washington Huskies. The design of the shoe is inspired by the extremely rare ‘Oregon Ducks’ AJ 3 Tinker’s that were  gifted exclusively to the University of Oregon football team back in 2018.

What makes this Air Jordan 3 Tinker Washington custom special is the fact that it’s filled with plenty of detailing while using premium materials. Garcia’s latest custom is hand crafted and features purple Italian suede, black perforated leather, and an embossed cement print leather. The tongue and eyelet rows are made from a 3M Guess x Places + Faces ComplexCon 2018 bag that was deconstructed and perforated by hand using a hammer and nail. The gold Jumpman on the tongue is embroidered. The heel tabs are made from a premium waxed leather and feature an Italian patent leather ‘W’ as an ode to the University of Washington. The shoes include removable velcro swooshes that come in black, purple, and gold. Its all in the details with the bad boys.

We’re pretty sure we know the answer to this but we’re going to ask anyway….If Jordan Brand were to drop something similar to this, how many of you would cop?

via: @DaveToldYaSo
images: @JayShotIt_

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