Classicism Meets Something New in Loewe Fall 2023 Campaign by David Sims
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Vogue Philippines 1st Anniversary Issue Takes Us to Batanes in 'Origins' Story
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Models Jo Ann Bitagcol, Lukresia and Rina Fukushi cover the September 2023 issue of Vogue Philippines [IG], celebrating the magazine’s first anniversary.
Sharif Hamza [IG] is behind the lens, so proud of this anniversary issue cover story styled by Melissa Levy under fashion director Pam Quinones. / Hair by Mong Amado; makeup by Gery Penaso
In the words of Ticia Almazan, the first anniversary cover story ‘Origins: Retracing Our History in the Highlands’ invited over a dozen designers and artists to interpret their beloved country’s homegrown high craftsmanship and artisanal techniques.
In Batanes, “a microcosm of a sustainable world,” we find our people’s beginnings—a story of earth, sky, craft, and boundaries broken.
Read MoreChurch’s X Miu Miu Campaign Is Home to Whip Smart Boys Club Girls
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The new Fall/Winter 2023 Church’s X Miu Miu collaboration, breaking tomorrow August 29 online at MiuMiu and in MiuMiu stores from September 6, projects perfect execution and attention to detail.
‘Quirky’ but Whip Smart in the Global Men’s Club
Miu Miu has always thrived as being a bit ‘quirky’, a trait embedded in its arty, independent, young women DNA.
The multicultural, spirited Miu Miu girl chooses the unexpected, sartorial twist, like wearing Church’s brogues and double monk strap shoes with her sheerish, color-explosion Miu Miu separates.
The campaign has a distinctive point about Miu Miu charm and self-identity. She may well be studying at the London School of Economics, not only Central Saint Martins. Her glasses, brogues and gentleman’s club ‘heritage’ chair reinforce her brainiac status. She is daring and purposesful, even when appearing light-hearted or a bit silly. Do not underestimate this young Miu Miu woman.
Read MoreDua Lipa Covers Vogue France September, Wearing Style Austerity Lensed by Mert Alas
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Top talent Dua Lipa covers the September 2023 issue of Vogue France, wearing ALAÏA in a 180° turn away from her bushy, dark brows. Barely-there nude makeup and a blonde no-brows, visual closeup launches a fashion story portrait of Dua Lipa by Mert Alas solo [IG] to kick off the fall 2023 fashion season with austerity.
In contrast to her center stage May 2023, joyful butterflies, exquisitely beautiful Versace ‘La Vacanza’ Magic in Cannes, a joyless darkness has settled over Dua Lipa’s France. It is perhaps a sign of the times.
Dua Lipa has a mini Oprah operation going on with her Service95 website, a place of intellectual ideas and commentary — and her podcast.
Even more consequential are her words about homophobia and transphobia and how close they are to misogyny.
Dua Lipa is highly articulate in how she sees this challenge :
“Homophobia and transphobia are close to misogyny. A lot of people, deep down, are just afraid of themselves. The freedom of others confronts them with what they do not have the courage to express. The beauty of a free, true and proud being paralyzes them.”
Read MoreAdwoa Aboah in 'Fresh Take' by Ronan McKenzie for Net-A-Porter August 21, 2023
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Top model, social activist and Gurl Talk founder Adwoa Aboah makes an absolutely-lovely, up-front-and-personal, “I’ve got this” appearance in Net-a-Porter’s August 21st fashion pages.
We have some utterly gorgeous images of Aboah, lensed by Ronan McKenzie [IG].
Aboah could light up a cigar in this moment, like some seven-figure, boys club lawyer — and she is believable. She’s taken the male gaze and turned it inside out on a journey to self-love that has been challenging at times.
In 2022, Aboah’s acting classes paid off with her debut in the much-loved east London-based drama ‘Top Boy’. And she tells her ‘Fresh Take’ interviewer Liv Little that high on her list of priorities is doing a ‘TED Talk’.
Read MoreZendaya Enters an Era of Risk, Lensed by Steven Klein for ELLE US September, 2023
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Uber talent Zendaya tells ELLE US September 2023 writer Clover Hope, that at the impending age of 27, she’s “entering an era of risk.”
Stepping into the role of Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s R-rated, tennis-pros tryst drama ‘Challengers’ leaves her fans asking ‘Disney who?’
Clover Hope uses a new-to-AOC term that we admire and understand: ‘sensual chaos’. And who better to photograph the layers of sexual heat, ambiguity and self-revelation — but also misunderstanding— embedded in human sexuality, than the master of such images Steven Klein [IG].
It’s been a real drought of edgy images like Klein’s, but human sexuality itself has evolved mightily. Hence the repressive, hair-on-fire tactics of the right-wing extremists, who are always lurking under our bedcovers.
Read More'Fellow Travelers' on Showtime Explained in Out Magazine September/October 2023
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In a fashion story and interview for Out magazine, cover stars Matt Bomer, Jonathan Bailey, Jelani Alladin, and Noah J. Ricketts reflect on the familial bonds formed by the actors in the upcoming limited eight-episodes series ‘Fellow Travelers’, with its premier October 27 on ‘Showtime’.
This fashion story and narrative by Mey Rude was created for Out before the Hollywood actor’s strike. The quartet is styled by Michael Miller in images by Jason Hetherington [IG].
A mindblowing fact about the focus of the Showtime series ‘Fellow Travelers’ is the probable deceptions between the two leading figures in the purge of homosexuals in the US federal goverment in 1953: Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn.
Even then, Roy Cohn was the subject of hush-hush, anecdotal rumours about his homosexual identity. Cohn was eventually diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1978.
Two more men with interesting biographies are tied to the key figures of ‘Fellow Travelers’. The first is America’s head of the FBI during the 1950s J. Edgar Hoover. The second — years later — is a younger man named Donald J. Trump.
Read MoreSydney Sweeney for S Moda El Pais September 2023 by Thomas Whiteside
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The Hollywood strike disrupted actor Sydney Sweeney’s ability to speak about her past and future projects with the September 2023 issue of S Moda for El Pais [IG].
Readers do get a lesson in just how fervently Sydney Sweeney knew at the young age of three that she had a gift for acting. Once she understood people had actual jobs in acting, her young vision was fully-formed.
It was then that the 10-year-old took control of the situation with her five-year plan — which she presented to her parents. Key steps included “meeting casting directors, auditioning for short films, student films, or commercials.”
Read MoreWill Icon Collection Pay Off for Victoria's Secret? Adriana, Candice, Gisele, Naomi to the Rescue
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The new VS campaign is excellent and has some real VS icons featured. Bringing back past VS models is a terrific idea for a brand trying to find safe ground to stand on. Shop the new collection at the VS website.
If I read the VS copy carefully, I’m sure we are all icons somewhere in it, so let’s just cut the AOC analysis short here and say “good job, VS.”
The Icon by Victoria’s Secret Collection models includes VS greats Gisele Bündchen, Naomi Campbell, Adriana Lima, and Candice Swanepoel.
The Icon cast campaigns expands to include Adut Akech, Emily Ratajkowski, Hailey Bieber, Paloma Elsesser and Sui He. I’m pleased to say that every woman listed here has archives on AOC.
Oyadeas!
Oh dear goddess Oya. I tried . . . I tried . . . I tried so hard to step carefully, but I just fell down the “we’re all icons” rabbit hole, and I did not see it coming.
Read MoreRalph Lauren's 2023 US Open Collection Is Courtside August 28 in Queens/NYC
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Ralph Lauren’s 2023 US Open collection is courtside on Monday, August 28 thru Sunday September 10 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.
Skirts and/or Shorts for the Ball Crew
Ball girls made their debut at the US Open in 1977, an encouraging factoid until you learn that ball girls first ‘worked Wimbledon’ in 1920.
Ah yes. It’s a long road to women’s emancipation, even when you’re chasing balls around the tennis court in a grand slam event.
AOC finds the French much more emancipated for women than America these days. But the French Open didn’t get ball girls until 1984; and the Australian Open was also in the early 1980s.
Ralph Lauren, Team USA and the Road to Paris 2024
AOC expects LVMH to help deliver another spectacle for the ages, as a premium partner of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
I’m not sure how they will top the June 20, 2023 Pharrell Williams debut for Louis Vuitton Men — a night that rocked Paris with sounds of ‘Joy’.
Ralph Lauren will again be outfitting Team USA for the Paris 2024 games— giving us two global citizens companies, who share Anne of Carversville’s values.
Read MoreFerragamo New Renaissance Fall 2023 Campaign by Tyler Mitchell Spotlights Uffizi Gallery
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Today’s release of a new Ferragamo Fall 2023 campaign, conceived by Ferragamo creative director Maximilian Davis, takes a spin on the Louvre’s success, confirming a new and very important, global-culture role for Ferragamo and Italian culture, via the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
The partnership between the Ferragamo brand and the Uffizi Gallery is not a one-off ad campaign. Details of its depth and reach will emerge in the coming months.
Lensed by American photographer Tyler Mitchell [IG], who was named to the TIME 100 list in 2023 and has a cameo in the images, the Ferragamo Fall 2023 campaign features top models including Anok Yai, Jessica Stam, Lina Zhang, Mona Tougaard, Paul Hamline, Taemin Park, and Vittoria Ceretti.
I asked my AI partner Lulu to research the history of the Uffizi Gallery, and she has delivered in a major way. Read on in AOC link top of post.
Read MoreKate Moss | Mert & Marcus | W Magazine September 2008 | 'Hammam'
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Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, known as Mert & Marcus, are top fashion photographers celebrated for their bold and provocative style. The duo remains very busy and relevant in fashion world in 2023, 15 years after their collaboration with W Magazine in 2008 for the editorial ‘Hammam’, featuring Kate MoKate Moss and Mert & Marcus at Charleston for British Vogue 2021
AOC revisited this 2008 Kate Moss by Mert & Marcus editorial Saturday for refreshing with large images, after The Guardian linked into AOC’s 2021 feature on ‘Charleston’ in Sussex, England. Kate was photographed by Mert & Marcus wearing Fendi Couture for British Vogue.
‘Charleston’ was home to the Bloombury set of writers, artists and members of the creatives set in England. While we write our own new article about ‘Charleston’ and the artists associated with this important place in European history — and also in America — you can visit the ‘living museum’ online.
Read MoreNike x Billie Eilish - Nike Air Alpha Force 88 Drops a Major LIVING INK Black Breakthrough
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Billie Eilish and Nike made sustainability news again this week, with the Tuesday [Aug.8] drop of the Nike x Billie Eilish - Nike Air Alpha Force 88 in Chicago Bulls colors.
Eilish is a devoted environmentalist and leverages her reputation always to move the fashion industry forward.
Billie’s New Kicks in Chicago
The mega-watt star wore her new kicks paired with a Chicago Bulls jersey at Lollapalooza 2023 Chicago last weekend. The scene was mega-watt, authentic Billie Eilish and the much-admired singer was generous with her kicks pics on her IG.
In total, her shoe is 25% recycled, and I’m sure Billie was begging for 35%.
In a clever headline, Vogue B wrote: “Algae is the new black: Nike sneaker swaps petroleum for sustainable ink. . . Other brands can take note.” This is news to AOC and we live close to the topic of sustainability.
Read MoreUlla Johnson Opens West Hollywood Kelly Wearstler-Designed Global Vibe Store
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Designer Ulla Johnson grew up in Manhattan but lived also ‘on the road’ as the daughter of archaelogists.
AOC immediately wants to know if Ulla traveled to the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa, a paleoanthropological site located about 50 km northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Gauteng province.
How about the Lake Turkana region of today’s Kenya, where the Leakey family discovered Lucy. Better yet, has Ulla Johnson been to the Omo Valley? Her clothes suggest ‘yes’.
As a mother to Soren, now 17; Asher, 13; Agnes, 11 and a vizsla named Daphne, and wife to Zach Miner, Ulla Johnson has travelled her own road out of Brooklyn and now to the opening of new store in West Hollywood.
Read MoreAngela Ahrendts Joining SKKY Partners Is Big Kim Kardashian News
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Taking a quick look at other Angela Ahrendts’ videos on capitalism and leadership, her decision to join Kim Kardashian’s private-equity firm is a stunning and inspiring score for SKKY Partners.
Kardashian formed SKKY in summer 2022, joining forces with longtime Carlyle Group consumer head Jay Sammons.
Ahrendts’ primary role with SKKY will focus on identifying and assessing high-potential brands; determining if and how SKKY can add value to them; and to coach and mentor the companies in which SKKY invests for its portfolio.
Read MoreTapestry to Acquire Capri Holdings in $8.5 Billion Deal in Consolidating Luxury Sector
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An American fashion mega deal was announced today, August 10, in which Tapestry, the parent company of Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman, will acquire Capri Holdings, home to Michael Kors, Jimmy Choo and Versace.
The purchase price is $8.5 billion and is not subject to any financial conditions. Tapestry has secured $8 billion from the Bank of America and Morgan Stanley to finance the deal, which will not close until 2024.
Capri, which has a market cap of just over $4 billion, reported revenues of $5.62 billion in fiscal 2023, down 0.7 per cent on the previous year’s record $5.65 billion. This performance is very subpar in the high-end luxury market, which has had a strong rebound in a post-COVID luxury retail landscape.
Read MoreUber Titan Earth Goddess Gisele Bundchen Covers Vogue Brazil August 2023 Issue
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Vogue Brasil calls Gisele the only übermodel, activist for environmental causes.
In her interview with EIC Maria Laura Neves IG], Gisele expresses her own view of her success: “I believe that it has a lot to do with my personality and the choices I’ve made. I was faithful to my values and my essence, always giving my best. I took the profession seriously and I was always very professional.”
“I am naturally more reserved and ended up choosing projects that I deemed more meaningful for me to showcase myself. Perhaps this has contributed to the longevity in a career that is typically so fleeting.”
AOC adds that like so many young models today, Gisele suffered from extreme anxiety, although she didn’t talk about it endlessly. The mother of Benjamin, 13, and Vivian, 10, has spoken for decades about the importance of mental health and her healthy-food, yoga-filled and martial arts, gratitude-to-the-universe lifestyle for decades now.
Read MoreNaomi Watts Talks Menopause and Stripes in ELLE France Fashion Lensed by Juankr
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