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Fernando Gomez Flashes India Tuersley in Vogue Ukraine August 2021 AOC Fashion
Model India Tuersley is styled by Roma Lansky in images by Fernando Gomez for Vogue Ukraine August 2021./ Makeup by Rosa Matilla
Tory Burch Fall 2021 Campaign Touches New York's Symbolic Soul AOC Fashion
Designer Tory Burch delivers her Fall Winter 2021 campaign in a pitch-perfect mindset. Malaika Holmen, Sacha Quenby and He Cong front a campaign that emotes soft-sell luxury and glamour, nostalgia and tradition but also modernity. The cellist is a perfect touch in images by Mikael Jansson.
The American luxury brand states: “The Tory Burch Fall Winter 2021-2022 is inspired by New York City. It is both the dream and the reality of possibilities, opportunity, creativity and diversity. The collection reinterprets American luxury, channeled through the attitude of classic New York.
As someone who came to New York City for all that Tory Burch describes, this campaign really grabs my heart in a deeply personal way. I sincerely hope that young creatives feel the same way. ~ Anne
Dioramour FW2021 Capsule Collection Adores China's August V-Day by Sarah Blais AOC Fashion
In China, Valentine’s Day is celebrated on August 14, 2021. Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri embraces the power of love with the Dioramour ready-to-wear and home gifts collection inclding DiorMaison Limoges porcelain mugs and dinnerware.
In a bold mix of black, white and red, the Dioramour capsule from the Dior AW 2021 collection hugs the fantasy of fairy tales and 'Alice in Wonderland' with 'D-Chess' checks giving graphic impact to a motorcycle jacket, bucket hat, sweater and silk scarf, and a 'D-Royaume d'Amour' motif scrawled across a white tee.
Sarah Blais [IG] captures the Dioramour collection with video by Fabien Baron. Models are Sofia Steinberg and Maryel Uchida.
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Karen Elson Poses for InStyle September 2021, Talks New Pro-Karen Modeling Venture AOC Fashion
Supermodel Karen Elson poses on the subscribers cover of InStyle Magazine’s September 2021 issue. Elson is styled by Daniela Paudice in images by Yelena Yemchuk [IG]./ Hair by Recine; makeup by Romy Soleimani
This entire fashion story is fabulous. Elson looks fantastic and Yemchuk’s images are rich and powerfully beautiful.
InStyle’s Karen Elson interview ‘Karen Elson Has the Power’ by Laura Brown delivers a power punch paragraph.
After 18 months of the universally painful and isolating COVID-19 experience, the modeling industry has been one of the first to revert to less than empathetic behavior. So Elson did something radical: She left her agents and now represents herself. The boldness of the move cannot be overstated. Agents not only groom a model's career, they manage finances and travel, often breeding less independence than codependence. And that, of course, can be less than healthy..
I just reread The Cut — which is where we first read that Karen Elson is on her own. And now I’ve read the InStyle article. There’s nothing new in this piece about Karen Elson, her work with Model Alliance and all the great role model work that Karen Elson does.
Elson at large raises issues about models getting respect — and money. We know about Elson and the Model Alliance’s campaigns for better treatment for models. Elson has asked previously, why do models not get compensated in ways similar to photographers, for example? Elson is raising some very big questions about the world of modeling beyond respect and being treated with a bit of empathy. Her questions include long-term compensation for creative work that rains money years later.
It’s clear that InStyle EIC Laura Brown has a low opinion of model agencies. But there’s no smoking gun in the InStyle story. I’m speed reading, but there’s not one example of the modeling industry being “one of the first to revert to less than empathetic behavior”, post-COVID. That’s a strong statement, Ms. Brown. Examples would be nice to support your assertion.
The issues — especially the financial issues that Elson raises — have always been at the center of AOC’s commentary about the 80’s supers. Elson observes:
I look at someone like Maye Musk, who I'm obsessed with, and I think, "All right. She's 73 years old. She's badass. She's still doing it." And the norms are being finally pushed up against. I look at Precious Lee. I look at Paloma [Elsesser]. Even Kaia [Gerber], who's now acting. These girls have got so much more to offer than just their beauty. Something has shifted. I remember [casting director] James Scully said to me that in the '80s the models had all the power. They were the ones who were calling the shots, like Linda Evangelista: "I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000." I love Linda, by the way. She is the funniest person on the planet. But they were in charge, and then. Somewhere in the '90s it went to, "Oh, they've got too much power. We've got to smack them back down."
AOC — and Anne personally — have always maintained that the smackdown of models was real — that the industry did say that the supers had too much power (and money). The downsizing of size 4-6 models to size 0 was about far more than sample sizes and the growth of the Asian market where women are smaller.
When you strip supermodel bodies of healthy muscles for ‘heroin chic’ waifs, you are an industry smacking models down to size — literally. And you are stripping them of sexual power. It’s happened to every great goddess in history.
Karen Elson — like most of us — endured a period of intense reflection during COVID lockdown. Elson decided — and we APPLAUD her — that she wants to represent herself. I hope she creates a new paradigm of some kind for other models to follow.
Elson is a realist and given the personal goals she has created for herself, she believes she can do a better job of selling Karen Elson, than her old agency. And she wants some editorial control over her jobs. Saying no to one, doesn’t means she never gets another.
If Google and Apple have talented employees not wanting to work in an office five days a week and Morgan Stanley has MBAs saying ‘no’ to investment banking over no quality of life, it makes perfect sense that Karen Elson doesn’t want to leave her kids on her first getaway post-COVID and run to meet a photographer who decided that very morning that s(he) had to have HER. And could she hop a plain pronto. Elson said “no’. Her kids were more important.
It’s not as if a more empowered model industry never existed. Personally, I think feminism at large got derailed in the late 90s and women have been losing ground ever sense. As Elson points out, there’s some hopeful signs out there in fashion world right now.
It’s silly to make predictions. But many of us are watching very carefully to see how our post-COVID world defines itself. As one new variant hits after another, we may be living a new life for decades to come. Can fashion adjust? It will have to. ~ Anne
Luc Braquet Captures Tosin and Zelda in 'Fashion Statements' for Tatler UK Sept 2021 AOC Fashion
Models Tosin Olajire and Zelda Attard are styled by Sophie Pera in ‘Fashion Statements’, lensed by Luc Braquet [IG] for Tatler UK September 2021./ Hair by Oskar Pera; makeup by Jose Bass
Anyelina Rosa in Artisan Luxury by Peter Ash Lee for Vogue Mexico July 2021 AOC Fashion
Valentina Collado styles Dominican model Anyelina Rosa in folkloric, artisan luxury from Dior, Gabriela Hearst, Michael Kors Collection and more. Photographer Peter Ash Lee [IG] is behind the lens for Vogue Mexico and Latin America July 2021./ Hair by Conrad Dornan; makeup by Anna G de V
Thierno Sy's 'The Art of Being Serious' Glittering Opulence for Harper's Kazakhstan AOC Fashion
Models Cheickna Sissoko, Florian DesBiendras and Masha Novoselova take a new spin on fashion opulence in ‘The Art of Being Serious’. Photographer Thierno Sy [IG] captures the trio styled by Raphaël Nicolas de Castro in maximum luxe from Alexandre Vauthier, Azzaro Paris, Chanel, Elie Saab, Giambattista Valli, Giorgio Armani, Jean Paul Gaultier, Ronald van der Kemp, Shiaparelli, Valentino and more.
The uptown trio thrills in maximum decadence for Harper’s Bazaar Kazakhstan July 2021./ Hair by Simon Chossier; makeup by Marie Lanne
MacKenzie Scott's HBCU Giving Contrasts Starkly With Historical White Funders AOC Living
Novelist and billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has so far given at least US$560 million to 23 historically Black colleges and universities. These donations are part of a bid she announced in 2019 to quickly dedicate most of her fortune to charity.
Scott’s gifts, including the $6 million she donated to Tougaloo College in Mississippi and the $45 million she gave North Carolina A&T University, vary in size but nearly all of the colleges and universities describe this funding as “historic.” For many, it was the largest single donation they had ever received from an individual donor.
Scott, previously married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is not making a splash just because of the size of her donations. She has an unusually unrestrictive get-out-of-the-way approach.
“I gave each a contribution and encouraged them to spend it on whatever they believe best serves their efforts,” Scott wrote in a July 2020 blog post.
She sees the standard requirements that universities and other organizations report to funders on their progress as burdensome distractions. Instead of negotiating detailed agreements before making a gift, she works with a team of advisers to stealthily vet a wide array of nonprofits, colleges and universities from afar before surprising them with her unprecedented multimillion-dollar gifts that come without any strings attached.
Scott is also supporting students of color through donations to the United Negro College Fund and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which give HBCU students scholarships, and by supporting many other colleges and universities that enroll large numbers of minority students.
Her approach sharply contrasts with how many wealthy white donors have interacted with Black-serving nonprofits, including HBCUs, in the past. As a historian of philanthropy, I have studied the paternalism of white funders, including those who helped many of these schools open their doors.
The first HBCUs were founded in Northern states before the Civil War, including Cheyney and Lincoln universities in Pennsylvania and Wilberforce University in Ohio. After the war, most HBCUs were established in Southern states. These institutions were lifelines for Black Americans seeking higher education during decades of Jim Crow segregation that locked them out of other colleges and universities. (Disclosure: I earned my bachelor’s degree at Lincoln University.)
Although many white philanthropists made large gifts to these schools, their support was fraught with prejudice. Initially, white funders pushed for HBCUs to emphasize vocational training, then called “industrial education,” such as blacksmithing, printing and shoemaking, over more intellectual pursuits.
White philanthropists including Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller had poured millions from their fortunes into the proliferation of Black industrial schools by the early 20th century. The HBCUs Hampton University in Virginia and Tuskegee University in Alabama, which received donations from Scott, were leading models of industrial education for decades.
Black students during a class on the assembly and repair of telephones at Hampton Institute (1899). US Library of Congress.
The vocational curriculum at these schools was promoted as preparing Black students to be skilled laborers and academic teachers. During this era, however, most graduates worked as unskilled laborers or vocational teachers.
White Southerners overwhelmingly approved of this arrangement, which left many HBCU grads on the bottom rung of society rather than making them educated citizens. Emphasizing industrial education at HBCUs preserved the superior economic status of white Americans and the racist system of segregation. But African Americans’ educational aspirations required much more.
W.E.B. Du Bois, a prominent Black intellectual, was a leading critic of the funding HBCUs got from wealthy whites. He said: “Education is not and should not be a private philanthropy; it is a public service and whenever it merely becomes a gift of the rich it is in danger.”
Read on: MacKenzie Scott's HBCU Giving Contrasts Starkly With Historical White Funders AOC Blackness
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Louis Vuitton Men's FW 2021 by Tim Walker Busts Power People Archetypes AOC Fashion
Whatever your opinion of Louis Vuitton Men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh, he is moving into his own zone of excellence — at least in the eyes of Bernard Arnault and the LVMH family.
Given the realities of business life, AOC reminds the naysayers of this simple reality check: “That’s all that counts.” Not only is LVMH thrilled with Virgil Abloh’s artistic and financial performance at Louis Vuitton Mens, but they are dramatically expanding his role and influence within the entire LVMH family of brands.
The month of July was intense for the Rockford, Illinois-born Abloh who is an artist, architect, entrepreneur, designer and DJ who — in the words of NYTimes woman-in-the-know Vanessa Friedman — is on track to “become the most powerful Black executive at the most powerful luxury goods group in the world.”
It’s true that Virgil Abloh is about “rewriting the rules”, and we love that this reality permeates most of what the hyper-creative visionary does with his time each day.
For the Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall 2021 Campaign, Abloh enlists his trusted creative partner, fashion photographer Tim Walker to play a fashion game of chess.
“By taking archetypes such as the writer, the artist, the drifter, the salesman, the hotelier, the gallery owner, the architect, or the student, the collection explores the dress codes that inform our predetermined perceptions of these familiar characters. Virgil Abloh imbues the grammar of these codes with different values and employs fashion as a tool to change those assumptions. Throughout the collection, garments, accessories, motifs and techniques play on themes of illusion, replicating the familiar through the deceptive lenses of trompe l’oeil and filtrage. Leather goods are interpreted through the classic shapes of Louis Vuitton and enriched with added wording, shiny silver, or tuffetage embroidery.” – from Louis Vuitton
Related: LVMH Buys 50% of Jay-Z's Champagne Brand As Bernard Arnault Nods To Black Culture's Financial Influence AOC Living
Savage X Fenty, Valued at $1 Billion, Is Poised To Rival Victoria's Secret and Win AOC Living (Note that while LVMH’s Fenty collab with Rihanna is on hold, the Arnaud family is a major backer in Savage X Fenty through L Catterton.)
Luz Pavon by Daniella Midenge Delivers Pedigree Gem Glamour to Vogue Mexico AOC Fashion
Mexican fashion and beauty model Luz Pavon is drenched in luxury jewelry from Cartier, Dior Jewelry, Harry Winston and more, styled by Aryeh Lappin. Daniella Midenge is behind the lens, creating high-voltage, rich-in-attitude images of Pavon for Vogue Mexico August 2021. / Makeup by Nicolás Beretteaga; hair by Gonn Kinoshita
Saskia de Brauw Poses at LongHouse Reserve for Ulla Johnson Resort 2022 AOC Fashion
Top model Saskia de Brauw poses for Ulla Johnson’s resort 2022 collection at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, a sculpture garden conceived by the American textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen. The nature oasis comes with a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome and a giant chess set by Yoko Ono, perfect backdrops for Emma Summerton’s sophisticated lookbook images.
Declining Male Fertility and Growing Concern Over Impact of Environmental Toxins AOC Fashion
Male Fertility Decline
Infertility is defined as a couple’s inability to get pregnant for one year despite regular intercourse. When this is the case, doctors evaluate both partners to determine why.
For men, the cornerstone of the fertility evaluation is semen analysis, and there are a number of ways to assess sperm. Sperm count – the total number of sperm a man produces – and sperm concentration – number of sperm per milliliter of semen – are common measures, but they aren’t the best predictors of fertility. A more accurate measure looks at the total motile sperm count, which evaluates the fraction of sperm that are able to swim and move.
A wide range of factors – from obesity to hormonal imbalances to genetic diseases – can affect fertility. For many men, there are treatments that can help. But starting in the 1990s, researchers noticed a concerning trend. Even when controlling for many of the known risk factors, male fertility appeared to have been declining for decades.
In 1992, a study found a global 50% decline in sperm counts in men over the previous 60 years. Multiple studies over subsequent years confirmed that initial finding, including a 2017 paper showing a 50% to 60% decline in sperm concentration between 1973 and 2011 in men from around the world.
These studies, though important, focused on sperm concentration or total sperm count. So in 2019, a team of researchers decided to focus on the more powerful total motile sperm count. They found that the proportion of men with a normal total motile sperm count had declined by approximately 10% over the previous 16 years.
The science is consistent: Men today produce fewer sperm than in the past, and the sperm are less healthy. The question, then, is what could be causing this decline in fertility.
Alessandra Ambrosio in Black Sensuality by Emma Summerton for Vogue Mexico and Latin America AOC Fashion
Supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio is styled by Valentina Collado in black beauty sensuality from Alaïa, Alberta Ferretti, Bottega Veneta, Cartier, Etro, Isabel Marant, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello and more. Photographer Emma Summerton [IG] captures ‘En Negro’ for Vogue Mexico and Latin America August 2021./ Hair by Luke Chamberlain; makeup by Benjamin Puckey
Zimmermann's Cannes Store | Nicky and Simone Interview in CR Fashion Book China AOC Fashion
Models Mao Xiaoxing and Shayna McNeill are styled by Carine Roitfeld in a glossy, easy-on-the-eyes visual Zimmermann fashion feast lensed by Sebastian Faena for CR Fashion Book China #3 2021./ Hair by Damien Lacoussade; makeup by Fay Bio-Toura
Writing for CR Fashion Book, Vienna Vernose profiles “Nicky and Simone Zimmermann are Bringing a Taste of Australia to Cannes.”
Giampaolo Sgura Captures 'Nomad' Cold-Weather Protection for Vogue Japan AOC Fashion
Models Kayako Higuchi and Yura Nakano are styled by Anna Dello Russo in ‘Nomad’, lensed by Giampaolo Sgura for Vogue Japan September 2021./ Hair by Andrew Guida; makeup by Luca Cianciolo
Caleb and Gladys Capture Elaine Thi in Luxe Jewelry for Vogue Mexico July 2021 AOC Jewelry News
Model and talent Elaine Thi is styled by Virginia Ray in Vogue Mexico’s luxury jewelry [‘Alta Joyeria’ July 2021 magazine, lensed by Caleb and Gladys [IG]. / Hair by Ty Shearn; makeup by Michael Anthony
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