DAME's 'Bleed Red. Think Green' Tampon String Showing Campaign Hits London Buses

Image via DAME

Britain’s DAME eco-friendly tampons have generated plenty of holiday spirit on London buses with the message ‘Bleed Red. Think Green.’ Perfect! There’s nothing better than a Dame who knows what she’s doing. Note that this DAME ships to the US and throughout Europe.

“Tampons and period products have been hidden in the shadows for too long,” DAME co-founder Celia Pool tells Dazed. “Still today, major brands boast on their boxes about silent wrappers. Why? There's no shame in rustling a tampon wrapper in the next door cubicle. Periods are not shameful.”

Image via DAME

Even though DAME has an excellent reputation in Britain with strong sustainability and product integrity credentials, launching the campaign was not easy. Veterinary nurse, law student and vegan beauty blogger Demi Colleen photographed herself standing in her underwear with a visible tampon string hanging down. Scandalous!

“We faced many roadblocks,” explains co-founder Alec Mills who says he was told that the ad was too ‘racy’ and would encounter problems broadcasting it on breakfast shows. “Many iterations of our advert got rejected. This clearly demonstrates the vast cultural chasm between what is happening with women’s bodies and how they are portrayed in reality.”

“This tampon string on the side of the bus is momentous, in that it hasn't happened before, but it's also utterly boring and normal. No one bats an eyelid when they see a tissue on the side of the bus, and it should be the same for a tampon string,” says Pool. “If every parent and carer were this cool about periods, period shame would be eradicated in one generation.”

DAME in the News

Award-Winning Brand DAME Is Changing The Face Of The Femcare Industry - One Tampon At A Time Forbes

The Founders of Dame on How They’ve Shaken Up the Feminine Care Industry Pop Sugar UK

Elizabeth Cabral: SustainChain UN Assembly Fashion Sustainability Dialogues Sept 16-18

Elizabeth Cabral: SustainChain UN Assembly Fashion Sustainability Dialogues Sept 16-18 AOC Sustainability

Joan Smalls by Zoey Grossman for Victoria's Secret Bombshell Passion Fragrance

Joan Smalls by Zoey Grossman for Victoria's Secret Bombshell Passion Fragrance AOC Body

Top model and racial justice activist Joan Smalls returns to the Victoria’s Secret spotlight, lensed by Zoey Grosssman in this Victoria’s Secret’s Bombshell Passion campaign. AOC shares the luscious images of key ingredients creating the Bombshell Passion fragrance, including notes of queen peony, Sparkling cassis and fuchsia rose. Read more Bombshell Passion news at Victoria’s Secret.

Joan Smalls activist shared a new essay throughout the Conde Nast network, as part of Vogue’s Hope campaign. Read on at British Vogue: “Are You Ready To Be That Force For Change?” Joan Smalls On How Fashion Can Truly Become Diverse

A Racial Equity Tools Glossary for People Seeking Racial Justice

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash.

Reading ‘How one woman pulled off the first consumer boycott — and helped inspire the British to abolish slavery’, on The Conversation, I became fixated on a comment that read:

thanks for the interesting article and for not using subjective racial terms. the story reads rationally and perfectly well without them, and avoids validating the mythology of race.

Thinking that I knew the meaning of his words, I Googled anyway and discovered this Racial Equity Tools Glossary. You can download a pdf version of this glossary from this link.

Words and phrases defined and discussed with the “context of racial equality” include: accountability, ally, anti-black, anti-racist, colonization, critical race theory, cultural misappropriation, cultural racism, decolonization, ethnicity, implicit bias, individual racism, institutional racism, internalized racism, intersectionality, microaggression, racial justice, racial reconciliation, racist, restorative justice.

Victoria's Secret Body Collection 2020 Takes Flight With Expanding VS Army of New Beauty

Victoria's Secret Body Collection 2020 Takes Flight With Expanding VS Army of New Beauty

The new campaign for Victoria’s Secret Body Collection — the very guts of the VS brand — is out, and we celebrate the return of “not too old under new VS ownership”, VS original Helena Christensen. Helena appears in several shots and is also the photographer of the campaign. Nice move!

Something akin to Balmain Army may be in the making, based on other new VS imagery. The concept is much more inclusive vs Angels, which is NOT inclusive and never was. Angels was a creation of the male minds suddenly running all of Victoria’s Secret — and yours truly was vehemently against it.

Helena joins Barbara Palvin, Candice Huffine, Daniela Pestova, Jasmine Tookes, Joan Smalls, Lais Ribeiro, Romee Strijd, Solange Van Doorn and Valentina Sampaio.

Gisele Bundchen Shares News of 'Kiss the Ground' Documentary in Marie Claire April 2020

Gisele Bundchen Shares News of 'Kiss the Ground' Documentary in Marie Claire April 2020

Gisele Bundchen covers the April 2020 issue of Marie Claire US, styled by J. Errico in Celine, Chloe, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Gabriela Hearst and more. Nino Muñoz captures Gisele in grounded images that anchor the message of her new documentary ‘Kiss the Ground’.

The interview is very comprehensive but the only new info is the new film. Otherwise, Sally Holmes’ questions are very repetitive — but excellent if you don’t know about Gisele’s background, family and strong ties to the environment. Also, Gisele is celebrating her 40th birthday. and also celebrating her 11th anniversary as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) this year

Beyoncé by Close Friend Melina Matsoukas in ELLE US January 2020 'Ask Me Anything'

Beyonce by Melina Matsoukas in ELLE US January 2020 ‘Ask Me Anything’

American music video, film, commercial and television director Melina Matsoukas, two-time Grammy Award winner and four-time MTV Video Music Awards winner for her "We Found Love" and "Formation" music videos, shoots her close friend Beyoncé in ELLE Magazine’s January 2020 cover story and interview ‘For Beyoncé, Creativity Is the Ultimate Power’.

Karen Langley styles the superstar in a mix heavy on selects from her IVY Park line. In a candid ‘Ask Me Anything’ narrative, Beyoncé responds to fan queries via email, Facebook and Instagram.

Taylor Swift Launches British Vogue 's 2020s Decade in Archive Chanel

Superstar Taylor Swift welcomes a new decade, wearing archive Chanel tweed for the January 2020 cover of British Vogue, lensed by Craig McDean. The jacket from Chanel’s Métiers d’art Paris-New York 2005/2006 collection expresses a keen desire from editor-in-chief Edward Enninful put sustainability front and center in fashion dialogue. Simply stated, we cannot add another decade of limitless, shop-until-you-drop consumption on Mother Earth’s wounded self.

Taylor Swift is fresh off winning six awards at last Sunday’s AMAs, bringing her total to 29. Swift won both artist of the year and artist of the decade.

“Buying better and buying less is what I believe in: investing in clothes that will last a lifetime, pieces that can be passed down from generation to generation. Fashion shouldn’t feel disposable: the best clothes can be worn time and time again and have the quality of both design and craftsmanship to ensure their staying power – that’s how I’ve always dressed, it’s just that, because I only wear black, you can never tell. In that spirit, it was important to me to choose a classic item for Taylor, one that is everlasting – and that’s why I used a Chanel jacket from the Métiers d’art 2005/2006 collection. It’s the ultimate sign of luxury, it has never gone out of fashion, and it never will.”

Taylor Swift is fresh off winning six awards at last Sunday’s AMAs, bringing her total to 29. Swift won both artist of the year and artist of the decade.

In her British Vogue interview, Taylor joins musical theater kindpin Andrew Lloyd Weber, to discuss their collaboration on the movie adaptation of ‘Cats’ Webber’s 1981 extravaganza that set records in London’s West End and also on Broadway, running for a combined shy of 40 years. The duo has created a new song ‘Beautiful Ghosts’, with lyrics written by Taylor the afternoon she first heard Webber’s “hauntingly beautiful melody”.

Returning to fashion and Swift’s Craig McDean photo shoot ‘Waste Not’, contributing fashion director Kate Phelan pairs vintage pieces dating back 35 years with looks from the autumn/winter 2019 and Resort 2020 collections and specially commissioned garments crafted from deadstock (merchandise never sold to or worn by consumers) . Katharine Hamnett’s much-publicised “Pershing” T-shirt is styled alongside inspiring pieces from Amsterdam-based designer Duran Lantink, who upcycles items from resale sites into new exquisite garments. “We are looking at the longevity of what designers make and sell,” Phelan explains of her process. “They don’t have to start from scratch every time they make a collection. I still have clothes from years ago that I mix in with more recent looks – an old Chanel jacket that can stand the test of time, say. Things you never get bored of.”

DAME Is First Period Brand to Be Climate Positive | Fish Rejoice

Celia Pool and Alec Mills, founders of DAME period products and delivery.

DAME Is First Period Brand to Be Climate Positive | Fish Rejoice AOC Women

Most young entrepreneurs struggle to be taken seriously by potential investors. Imagine having raised capital from investors to support DAME, a subscription service delivery a range of London high street period products to women living in the UK, and returning to investors with an ethical problem is epic proportions in the business model. In one word: sustainability. .

“Pivoting the business was a real challenge,” co-founder Celia Pool recalled for Forbes. “Having to go to our investors and say that we no longer believed in the synthetic single-use products that we were selling, and we wanted to design our own was a big thing.

“We had a lot to prove,” Pool continued, explaining how she and business partner Alec Mills, brought their new sustainable tampon and applicator to market in early 2019.

Dazed Digital shares another major milestone development in DAME’s road to success.

Let’s ground ourselves in facts.

Tampons and sanitary pads are estimated to produce over 100 billion pieces of waste every year and they are the fifth-most common type of waste washing up on beaches, with nine plastic tampon applicators found per kilometre on UK beaches according to the Women’s Environmental Network. With the average woman using around 12,000 tampons in her life, each of them contributes 24,000 pieces of plastic to landfill, as most applicators have two plastic parts.

That is one sobering paragraph for ALL women who have a degree of choice in our lives — and that includes menopausal women with granddaughters. We all have obligations to saving our planet, but this is one subject all women can relate to.

DAME Is First Period Brand to Be Climate Positive Read on in AOC Women

Victoria's Secret Releases Gorgeous Pre-Fall 2019 Ad Campaign As Stock Falls Under Epstein Scandal

Victoria's Secret Releases Gorgeous Pre-Fall 2019 Ad Campaign As Stock Falls Under Epstein Scandal

Embattled lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret releases its pre-fall 2019 campaign, with product and an editorial vision under new CEO, former Tory Burch president John Mehas.

The campaign is shot by Adam Franzino, very much in the style of my Victoria’s Secret vision and features VS Angels Elsa Hosk, Jasmine Tookes, Romee Strijd, Martha Hunt and Taylor Hill joined by Rubina Dyan.

Meghan's Dear Friend Misha Nonoo Opens London Pop-Up At 70-72 Marylebone Lane

Meghan's Dear Friend Misha Nonoo Opens London Pop-Up At 70-72 Marylebone Lane

New York-based Nonoo, who is rumored to be the matchmaker between Harry and Meghan, is now in London, ensconced in her first pop-up space in at 70-72 Marylebone Lane.

Markle and Nonoo are joined at the hip on the topic of sustainability. The designer, who plans another pop-up in New York during September, will open a permanent location in either London or New York next year.

Victoria's Secret Kisses Network TV Fashion Show Goodbye | Thinking Next Steps

Victoria’s Secret is going to rehab and hopefully something new and wonderful will be born on the watch of former president of Tory Burch John Mehas.

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show kissed network television ‘goodbye’ Friday, announcing that it will no longer air on network television after 22 years years for the fashion show, and almost two decades on television.

The announcement was made in a Friday memo to the chain’s associates from Leslie Wexner, the chief executive of Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, L Brands. Mr. Wexner said that the company had been “taking a fresh look at every aspect of our business” in the past few months, and noted that the brand “must evolve and change to grow.”

“With that in mind, we have decided to re-think the traditional Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show,” he wrote. “Going forward we don’t believe network television is the right fit.” He said the company would develop “a new kind of event” on different platforms in the future, though he gave no further details.

Viewers of the fashion show have totally plummeted from 9.7 million viewers in 2013 to 3.3 million viewers in 2018. Reality is that the VS Fashion Show viewship peaked in 2001 at 12.4 million. In the months after Sept. 11 we all needed a lift, and it was the first time the show was broadcast on network TV.

When a show never again hits its debut #s — in almost 20 years — one must ask if all is well in VS brand land. Or it the VS Fashion Show the business card of the show’s producers? And the ebullient models who are overjoyed to be there?

In reality, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show - the ‘camp’ spectacle that has come to represent the brand — which is NO Gucci for shareholders with its plunging stock price— was drowning in low ratings of about 7 million viewers in 2006-2007. Mega talent and even larger over-the-top expenditures for the production lifted the viewers to 10.4 million in 2011. Increasingly the demographic was also NOT the core VS customer.

It’s difficult to watch a brand that I helped build be so out of touch with women generally and younger women in particular. Let’s hope VS is not Humpty Dumpty. Am sending all my goddess energy to VS CEO John Mehas and his team, with high hopes that they can give this aging, out-of-touch showhorse a new set of great legs. ~ Anne