Bulgari's Eiza González in L'Officiel Paris Wonder Women Issue by Nick Thompson
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Tiny Bird Bone Flutes from Prehistoric Natufian People Found in Israel
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Levant-region archaeologists have discovered prehistoric flutes believed to be 12,000 years old. The flutes were scattered among a stockpile of 1,100 bird bones and had gone unnoticed since the site’s discovery in 1950.
The flute instruments were discovered at a site called Eynan-Mallaha [also known as Ain Mallaha], located on the shores of Lake Hula in the Huleh Valley of today’s northern Israel. The site is believed to be home to the last hunter-gatherers in the region, says Dr. Laurent Davin, an archaeologist and a post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Natufian people were a prehistoric group that lived in what is now modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and northern Syria around 12,500 to 9,500 BCE. They were known for their advanced hunting and gathering techniques, as well as their unique cultural practices.
Read MoreNile Rogers: Muscian, Composer, Producer in Chanel Eyewear 2023 Campaign
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Nile Rogers may be a new name in Chanel Eyewear’s Spring 2023 campaign— unless you are old-schooled in “Good Times, “I’m Coming Out,” and “Le Freak.”
Nile Rodgers is a critically acclaimed musician, composer, and producer who has made an indelible mark on the music industry. Born in New York City in 1952,
Rodgers' breakthrough came in the mid-1970s, when he formed the disco group Chic with bassist Bernard Edwards. The band's debut album, "Chic," was a huge success, featuring hits like "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance." Chic went on to release a string of hit albums and singles, becoming one of the most popular groups of the disco era.
Understanding the importance of diversification in the music industry, Nile Rogers spread his net into producing, composing and yes— modeling for luxury brands like Chanel.
Yes, Rogers always wears sunglasses as a sign of cool.
Read MoreAir Jordan 2 "Wings" Honor SVP Howard "H" White with Moving Video Tribute
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Ahead of the Air Jordan 2 "Wings" release on June 10 as a part of the Jordan Wings Program for the Summer 2023 season, Jordan Brand has debuted an inspiring, heartfelt tribute to SVP Howard "H" White.
White is one of the founders of the Jordan Brand’s "Wings" program. His own personal history and life philosophy, as revealed in the video, are intimately relevant to the brand’s expansion of its classic high-top offerings.
Old-school, Jordan Brand values are really important to America’s future.
Howard “H'“ White’s impact on Nike and the Jordan Brand is hard to overstate. And mentoring youth is an anchor of White’s entire career.
We must follow his lead and do our part as adults. We need to see our kids thrive, and the human touch is critical.
Read MoreMarni x No Vacancy Inn Campaign Images Shot in Accra, Ghana by Derrick Ofosu Boateng
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Fresh off Marni Creative Director Francesco Risso’s collaboration with Erykah Badu and Vogue’s March 2023 deep dive into the twosome, AOC turns our focus to another Marni Jam series Marni x No Vacancy Inn.
Both collabs are on Marni’s Instagram now, but we will also pull them in their entirety onto AOC for archiving. Forgive me, but Virgil Abloh is on full blast today, and is probably just driving my brain and I’m along for the ride.
AOC may not be hip, but I am chill, so it all works out.
In the same spirit of low-tech, color-saturated Ghana-inspired images, Marni x No Vacancy Inn rolls in with campaign images shot in Accra, Ghana by Derrick Ofosu Boateng [IG], who calls himself “a Ghanaian photographic hueism artist and designer.’
Like Prince Gyasi, Boateng is shooting with an iPhone and then whipping up his techno-colored image souffle.
Read MoreModern Nazi Fighter Amy Spitalnick Is New CEO of Jewish Council for Public Affairs
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The Jewish Council for Public Affairs [JCPA] has named Amy Spitalnick as its new CEO. The appointment could not come soon enough, after the organization’s decision to pursue a more liberal approach to break away from the consensus-driven Jewish Federations of America.
In addition to being called a “modern-day Nazi fighter”, Spitalnick has earned the title of “democracy defender.”
Spitalnick sued the Charlottesville 2017 neo-Nazis “Unite the Right” rally organizers and won a successful multimillion-dollar lawsuit, as the executive director of Integrity First for America [IFA].
“There needs to be an organization that wholeheartedly recognizes how deeply intertwined Jewish safety is with other communities’ safety and how bound up that all is in a broader fight for democracy at this moment, and builds the sorts of coalitions within and across communities that are essential to moving the needle,” she said.
Read MoreROXY x Kate Bosworth Swim 2023 Collection | "Blue Crush" Is Finally Reality for Women Surfers
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In 2002, the movie “Blue Crush” depicted women competing at Hawaii’s Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu. In reality, very few women surfed the seven-mile mecca. Surfer Keala Kennelly was one for-real woman surfer, who joined the “Blue Crush” movie with an understanding that if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.
Actor Kate Bosworth was also in “Blue Crush” played Annemarie Chadwick, a native of Oahu’s North Shore, training to compete in Hawaii’s Pipe Masters, a surfing competition where “you don’t just get worked—you die.”
That descriptor comes from Vogue, who also got clever in writing about Bosworth’s new “Blue Crush” style collab with ROXIE, the women’s surf brand that is credited for designing the first women’s board shorts in 1990.
“Blue Crush” was a movie about the future — 20 years into the future — and that future is now.
An Equity Drive for Women Surfers That Took Half a Century
Surfing has long been associated with hyper-masculinity; now changes are finally underway decades later in gender equity policies within its ranks.
Read More400 Pharma and Biotech Companies Issue 'Scorching Condemnation' of Texas Mifepristone Ruling
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Scientists and senior executives from more than 400 pharmaceutical and biotech companies and also investment firms issued what the New York Times called a “scorching condemnation” of the ruling of Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued late Friday, April 7th that invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.
Titled “In Support of FDA’s Authority to Regulate Medicines”, the letter excerpts shared on AOC read:
On Friday, April 7, a federal judge with no scientific training fundamentally undermined the bipartisan authority granted by Congress to the Food and Drug Administration to approve and regulate safe, effective medicines for every American.
District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a decision that overturns the 23-year old approval of mifepristone, the primary medicine used in abortion and miscarriage care, and which has been proven by decades of data to be safer than Tylenol, nearly all antibiotics and insulin.
The decision ignores decades of scientific evidence and legal precedent. Judge Kacsmaryk’s act of judicial interference has set a precedent for diminishing FDA’s authority over drug approvals, and in so doing, creates uncertainity for the entire biopharma industry . . .
As American citizens and interested parties, we are invited to add our names to the letter. Anne of Carversville has signed on to the simple Google doc. Texas District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s assault on science and a key federal institution deeply embedded in American life — the FDA — was even more chilling to me as an American citizen than the June 24, 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned the nearly five-decades-old Roe v Wade decision.
Read MoreAmerican Women Ensnared in Dueling US District Court Mifepristone Rulings
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On Sunday, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on CNN’s “State of the Union” said that not only is the Texas ruling unlawful, but it threatens the entire process of FDA drug approval.
“First and foremost, when you turn upside down the entire FDA approval process, you’re not talking about just mifepristone,” he said. “You’re talking about every kind of drug. You’re talking about our vaccines, you’re talking about insulin, you’re talking about the new Alzheimer’s drugs that may come on.”
Many exciting new drugs involve stem-cell research, and the Catholic Church already raised ethical objections to promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are manufactured using cells derived from human fetuses electively aborted decades ago.
Will the Catholic Church and MAGA crowd sue in Texas to take all drugs off the market derived from human fetus stem cells? Because the list of new drugs coming out of the COVID vaccine epidemic research is breathtaking. We’re talking cancer vaccines.
Meanwhile, the drug Mifeprex [Mifepristone] is so safe that deaths associated with taking Viagra are 10x the number associated with Mifepristone.
Read MoreCEO Roz Brewer's Walgreens Donated in 2022 to Red State AG's No Abortion Pills Letter Group
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Like this Twitter follower, I was also watching Ali Velshi on MSNBC Saturday, when he reported that Walgreens had donated money to the very Red State AGs group that sent Walgreens the onimous “don’t do it” letter about selling abortion pills in their stores.
Unlike Fox News, Ali Velshi is very particular about the words coming out of his mouth. While we don’t know the amount of money donated — and whether a similar amount was donated to a Blue State AGs group — I do not challenge the veracity of Velshi’s claim. He would not make it without the receipts.
This new revelation didn’t make me feel any better about Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer, a businesswoman we celebrated on her appointment to the Walgreens Boots Alliance corner office as the first Black woman CEO.
Read More'Urgency' is Anderson Clayton's Middle Name As NC Democratic Party Gets New Leaders
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Until this week, the best news about the future of North Carolina Democrats was the development of a future Apple campus in Durham, the fourth largest city in the state. Next came confirmation that fellow digital-world goliath Meta [parent to Facebook and Instagram] would also be locating a major office complex in Durham.
The city of 300,000 people is expected to double in size in the next 25 years, generating high hopes for Democrats that North Carolina will become a more progressive state politically.
Future Is Now and It’s Younger
That future reality met today with the February 2023 ouster of Democratic North Carolina state party chair Bobbie Richardson, running for her second term, replaced by 25-year-old Anderson Clayton to guide them through the upcoming 2024 election. Note that both ‘Bobbie’ and ‘Anderson’ are women.
Read MoreMax Mara Spring 2023 Collection with Adut, Annemary, Dara by Ethan James Green
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Max Mara’s Spring-Summer 2023 campaign has sophisticated swagger. Models trio Adut Akech, Annemary Aderibigbe and Dara Allen step it up to remind us that they are far more than muses or mannequins. Fashion editor Tonne Goodman styles the shoot — a collection of sophisticated essentials with discreet details that she herself would wear — in images photographed by Ethan James Green.
Looking at the images immediately took me back to December 2018, when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi exited a tough meeting with then president Donald Trump.
The shot of Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer leaving a hard-as-nails meeting with Trump went viral, generating such digital heat that Max Mara creative director Ian Griffiths responded that the coat would be reissued.
AOC has always liked Ian Griffiths because he’s a male designer willing to explore his own contradictions. He does just that in speaking about the 2023 campaign inspired by the French Riviera. Griffiths has not been caught up in trying to make women ‘its’ or ‘theys’, degendering us in such a way that the very concept of women’s rights is no longer necessary. We’re all humans, no need to discuss the failure of mostly — but not exclusively — men to acknowledge women’s inequality.
Read MoreThe Beautiful Pharrell Williams has been Named Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director
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I never praise myself, but I KNEW Pharrell was the perfect human for Louis Vuitton Mens and that LV would see it that way, too.
I’ve asked Louis Vuitton Mens [and Dior — too — both men and women] and Etro this morning to pick up the mantle that few businesses can lead. LVMH is well aware of what I am saying. And they are listening.
This video about Pharrell’s ‘Black Ambition’ organization is only about two years old. Clearly Virgil knew how ill he was, but we see here Virgil and Pharrell really speaking to issues of black success. The convo goes deep into their values as humans.
Felecia Hatcher is very succesful in her own right and she serves as CEO of ‘Black Ambition’.
Read MoreCharlie Hebdo Drops the Gauntlet in Paris As Iran Resumes Brutal Hijab Crackdown
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Arab News Tehran reports that Iran’s judiciary has ordered police to “firmly punish” people who violate the country’s hijab law, a news agency reported Tuesday, January 10.
France’s Charlie Hebdo magazine, a French satirical weekly magazine, has again provoked the Iranians, publishing cartoons mocking Iran’s ruling clerics and their aggression against the protesters.
Two French-born al-Qaida extremists attacked the newspaper’s office in 2015, killing 12 people in Paris on January 7, 2015. Today the irreverent publication operates from a secret location with round-the-clock police protection, continuing its refusal to bow down to right-wing, religious zealots of any ideology, not only Islam.
Read MoreNatalia Vodianova on Sisterhood, Activism, Philanthropy in Vogue Beauty Paper
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Supermodel Natalia Vodianova covers Vogue Beauty Paper, January 2023, a media project of Vogue China. Natalia is styled by Michelle Cameron, with creative direction by Matt Mcdonald. Photographer Hugo Comte [IG] is in the studio.
Natalia Vodianova’s stratospheric rise has been breathtaking, as she increasingly turns her attention to her work as a philanthropist, impact investor and UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador.
In Nepal and India, large numbers of women do not have the right to touch food or crops while they are menstruating, because they can cause bad luck to their families. A 2019 study found that 77% of west-central Nepali girls and young women actively practice menstrual exile, even though it is now illegal in India.
Girls in Bolivia are still told that their period blood causes illnesses like cancer in other people.
Read MoreDior Magazine Presents 7 Spanish Photograpbers Interpreting 'Andalusian Grace' Cruise 2022.23 Collection
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Women’s Status in 2023
There is no stronger voice for women’s rights in fashion culture than Dior’s Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri. Her leadership and creative vision increases in value at a time when women’s rights are under assault worldwide, including in America.
There’s a reason why the word ‘woman’ was the most-searched word on dictionary.com in 2022. Clearly, we don’t know who women are any more. Can you imagine a search for the word ‘men’?
Carrying on with its 21st century Medici mission, after the Cruise 2022.23 show in Seville, Dior invited seven Spanish photographers to engage in dialogue with the brand with their photographic interpretations of the cruise collection that truly celebrated Andulasian culture.
Dior Magazine’s ‘Andulasian Grace’ features these talented photographers: Berta Vicente Salas; Andrea Torres Balaguer; Silvia Conde; Raquel Chicheri; Eva Diez; Irene Cruz; Alba Yruela.
Read MoreKanye West Tops Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 2022 Global Antisemitism List
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The Jewish global human rights organization Simon Wiesenthal Center released its Top Ten Worst Global Anti-Semitic Incidents 2022 on January 29. [see pdf].
Ye topped the list for “his continued anti-Semitic comments and leveraging his immense social media platform to weaponize hate, bigotry, and ignorance.”
Read MoreRabbits Are Rising for Mushroom Lovers
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With the Gregorian calendar’s New Year’s Day upon us in hours, and the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Rabbit ringing in the Lunar New Year on January 22, 2023, Gucci releases a beautiful and without controversy campaign that celebrates two global cultures and also Easter 2023, coming on April 9.
Thank you to perhaps the most soulful creative in fashion — Alessandro Michele, formerly of Gucci. I am certainly one of the people who only recently expressed my understanding of your vision and perspective.
Read MoreAll Barbie's DreamHouses Constitute Barbitecture | Like a Paleolithic Goddess, Barbie Teases July 21, 2023 Opening
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To celebrate her influence on American design and architecture, Mattel collaborated with the design magazine PIN-UP on a limited-edition art book, “Barbie Dreamhouse: An Architectural Survey.”
“Barbie’s house is infinitely more exciting than Barbie herself,” writes Elvia Wilk, a cultural critic. “The structures we live within — fantasize about living within — say more about our lives and dreams than plastic bodies ever will.”
The New York Times breaks down the Barbitecture story with A Six-Decade Tour of Barbie’s Dreamhouses and AOC gifts readers the link.
Wilk is one of many critics who contribute to the book’s analysis of Barbie’s huge influence on American culture.
Read More10 Things to Love About Copper Jewelry and Ancient Goddesses
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