Hopes are High for Release of Saudi Arabia Blogger Raif Badawi

Update: March 7, 2022: There is no word on the release of Raif Badawi, even though he has served his sentence in Saudi Arabia. Amnesty urges release of blogger after sentence expires Middle East Eye

As Vladimir Putin launches an unprovoked assault on Ukraine — stunning global citizens who see Putin as a malevolent war criminal gone wild in his barbarity against the totally innocent people of Ukraine — there is hope that Saudi blogger Raif Badawi might be released.

Badawi was arrested in 2012 on accusations of insulting Islamic religious figures on his blog Free Saudi Liberals. In a 2014 court decision that stunned human-rights activists as unjust, Mr. Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The further sentence of 1,000 lashes for blasphemy — a sentence that would absolutely kill him — created gasps of horror worldwide, including on Anne of Carversville. The author was also fined $266,000.

Badawi received the first 50 lashes in April 2015 — which did nearly kill him — and was not subjected to further flogging scheduled in June of 2015, as his body hadn’t healed. In April 2020, Saudi Arabia bowed to international pressure and abolished flogging. The result was the cancellation of the remaining 950 lashes of Raif Badawi’s sentence.

Hopes are high that Raif Badawi may be released from jail in days. Badawi has spent almost ten years in prison, and often total isolation. The dissident was sentenced using the Islamic — or hijri — calendar. By that calendar's reckoning, on Rajab 26 1443, he will have spent 10 years in jail. The actual date on the Georgian calendar is February 28.

Human rights group Amnesty International has campaigned for Badawi’s release for years, along with other organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. Amnesty International believes that the release could be imminent.

Givenchy Spring 2022 Campaign with Kendall Jenner Erupts with Kenny Bag and Artistic Energy

Givenchy Spring 2022 Campaign with Kendall Jenner Erupts with Kenny Bag and Artistic Energy AOC Fashion

Supermodel Kendall Jenner returns to Givenchy’s Spring Summer 2022 campaign, accompanied by He Cong, Iselin Steiro, and Steinberg. Photographer Heji Shin [IG] captures the campaign with art direction by Sarah Jayne Todd. Panos Yuapanis styles the shoot, which includes a campaign film, executed also by Heji Shin, set to the music of Surkin./ Hair by Duffy; makeup by Lucia Pieroni

Two Big Engagement Ring Trends for 2022: Art Deco Emerald Cut and Lab Grown Diamonds

Two Big Engagement Ring Trends for 2022: Art Deco Emerald Cut and Lab Grown Diamonds AOC Fashion

For over 20 years, I’ve been focused on three major subsets of Americans: the traditionalists, the moderns, and the cultural creatives. Hearst’s Diego Gravinese Fractalia 5 is deeply rooted in the Cultural Creatives mindset. Most of us reading AOC are Cultural Creatives and/or Smart Sensuality women.

The latter are women who are sexy and smart; focused on achievement; and possessed with deep empathy for people and our planet. Often they are modern values women [you just can’t be rich enough or wear enough stuff on your back] who have crossed over to a much more progressive-values way of thinking. We are not show horses.

I’ve called us “lipstick liberals”, which the AOC crowd might deride. But AOC the Congresswoman has herself perfected the pouty red mouth.

Looking at Hearst’s Diego Gravinese painting Fractalia 5 brings other trailblazing women in this mold to mind, women we’ve written about for years at AOC. Think Beyonce, Amal Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lopez: They are all women who smash through the fractal panes of imaginary glass that keep them in check.

In a moment of serendipidity, I searched for information about the rings they wore. Among women I admire deeply, one shape — the emerald cut — emerges like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Dior's Spring 2022 Ad Campaign and New Bergdorf Goodman Shop Explode with Optimism

Dior's Spring 2022 Ad Campaign and New Bergdorf Goodman Shop Explode with Optimism AOC Fashion

Dior releases its Spring 2022 campaign, with its show-stopping, jewel-like colors and sporty vibe. Marc Bohan’s 1961 ‘Slim Look’ wasn’t the only important heritage reference mined for Maria Grazia Chiuri’s spring 2022 show. Bohan’s Dior Sport line was also center stage.

The Dior design vision represents a 180-degree turn in the road from Dior’s Olympics Grecian goddess resort show. As opposed to enduring the pandemic, Chiuri chose to fight back with bold colored, contagious optimism and the ‘60s global spirit of female liberation.

Seeing the unity of dress among young women from America to Britain, Sudan and Afghanistan — YES, Sudan and Afghanistan — reminds us of the perilous, patriarchal attempts worldwide to deny women their own self-determination. The images from that time period are almost impossible to believe, and they certainly created a horrific backlash against women’s fashion integration into global public spaces, previously occupied by men.

Italian artist Anna Paparatti and the legendary Roman nightclub the Piper Club inspired Chiuri’s design direction, one that pays homage to 1960s pop style with a crayola-colors explosion of boundary-crashing, purposeful ‘60s design.

The Spring 2022 campaign is lensed by Brigitte Niedermair [IG] and is timed with the opening of Dior’s new boutique at Bergdorf Goodman New York. References to the new Dior Bergdorf shop — see end of post — are lensed by Francis Dzikowski [IG] courtesy of Bergdorf Goodman.

Music for the events is set to the beat of Daft Punk’s ‘Around the World’, with video by Fabien Baron and choreography by Matilda Fleberg.

The Campaign

Models include Maryel Uchida, Naomi Ekindi, Sculy Mejia and Steinberg. Performers Angela Arcueno, Ahtayaw Ea, Soleila Chaou, Nicolas Huchard, Shirwann Jeammes, Laureen Parruitte and Julia Spiesser also appear in the Dior Sporty runway and campaign images.

Tod's Post First 2021 Increase in Six Years Under Designer Walter Chiapponi

Tod's Books 40% Revenue Increase in 2021 under Creative Director Walter Chiapponi AOC Fashion

Italian luxury brand Tod’s defied financial analysts forecasts, booking a 40% increase in revenues to 883.8 million euros ($997 million) in 2021. This was the first increase in sales since 2015, boosted by strong fourth-quarter growth in Europe and the United States. This good news catches our attention because major sales increases in the luxury market aren’t being driven by Europe.

Walter Chiapponi at Tod’s

Analysts haven’t yet credited Tod’s creative director Walter Chiapponi for the sales performance, but the topic should be front and center in Tod’s talk. The Italian luxury market veteran — who showed his first collection for the House in February 2020 for fall/winter 2020 — is Tod’s first creative director to be responsible for men’s and women’s fashion as well as leather goods.

“I think it’s a matter of maturity,” the soft-spoken designer told the press about his Tod’s arrival. “When you’ve been creative in a very extreme way for so long, you want to do something more grounded, more elegant, more sophisticated. I’m in my 40s, and now I really detest seeing [fashion] that gets old in a few weeks.”

Tod’s Pre-Fall 2022 Lookbook

Walter Chiapponi’s pre-fall 2022 lookbook caught AOC’s eye. Model Kathie Lam is styled by Margherita Moro, then lensed by Anton Gottlob [IG]. / Hair by Massimo Gamba; makeup by Tanja Friscic

Chiapponi described his Tod’s assignment as one of updating traditional Italian casualwear with what he calls “a dirtier, more modern take on bon ton.” Tod’s gains an inner wild child and a bit of edge without disrupting their core identity of bourgeois propriety.

The new creative director supports strongly Tod’s commitment to responsible sustainability practices. Beyond using certified organic fabrics, Chiapponi presented “a new furry texture, lining an oversized sweatshirt/bomber hybrid. Made with a yarn woven from the upper and fluffier part of the fleece of the sheep, which is not harmed when shearing, it was extra-soft to the touch.” via Vogue

Vogue Portugal's Intellectual 'Sete Magnificas' by Nicola Delorme with Nina Marker

Vogue Portugal's Intellectual 'Sete Magnificas' by Nicola Delorme with Nina Marker AOC Fashion

Model Nina Marker is styled by Joana Dacheville in ‘Sete Magnificas’, a beautiful fashion story with a very intellectual foundation. It’s so AOC!!! Photographer Nicola Delorme [IG] is behind the lens for Vogue Portugal December 2021/January 2022./ Hair by Nicolas Philippon; makeup by Caroline Fenouil

I have much to say about these translated words, as they reflect my philosophy about the desire of modern humans to triumph over others — and to triumph over death.

Fashion plays a role in this absurd pursuit of triumph, as Vogue Portugal notes. One of the most profound books that I’ve read — as a Jungian — is Ernest Becker’s book ‘Denial of Death’.

The premise of this book is addressed in Vogue Portugal’s commentary as it explores the rise of Western civilization and our attachment to possessions that we don’t need in ‘Sete Magnificas’. You can enjoy it as a beautiful fashion story, but it’s intended meaning and desire for dialogue goes far deeper.

Via Google translator, Vogue Portugal writes:

The year has four seasons, but our time on Earth has seven: the introduction to life, which is genesis; childhood, narcissist, adolescence, that centaur of transformation, adulthood, adulthood, which comes as a claim to our own power; motherhood, tree of life and knowledge; old age, which contains all possible wisdom; and, finally, the epilogue -- death.

The human being, aware of his mortality, is consumed by two conflicts: being and nothingness. Denial and acceptance. Fight or surrender. Because humanity is nothing more than the generosity of time. It is not by chance that the painting Saturn devouring a un hijo, by Francisco de Goya, shows Cronos (or Saturn, in Roman mythology). god of time, to eliminate his offspring for fear of being dethroned.

An allegory about the passage of time where it is implicit that, however inexorable this defeat may be, man will always try to fight his dark star: death. That is why human vanity appears, in everything we do, as the promise of the eternal return of a triumphant self, which never fails to overcome itself.

Latin Icon Christina Aguilera Covers ELLE Mexico, February, Lensed by Benjo Arwas

Latin Icon Christina Aguilera Covers ELLE Mexico, February, Lensed by Benjo Arwas AOC Fashion

Latin pop star, entertainer Christina Aguilera covers the February 2022 issue of ELLE Mexico. Chris Horan styles the legendary star, who dyed her hair for the occasion, in images by Benjo Arwas [IG].

Christina Aguilera’s ‘La Fuerza’ , a six-track EP, has put the legendary entertainer back on Billboard’s Latin albums charts after two decades. Almost 22 years have passed since Aguilera released "Mi Reflejo," her only album in Spanish.

Aguilera, who is of Ecuadorian descent and born in New York’s South Bronx in 1977, tells press that as a mother now, she relishes the chance to share her Spanish music with her kids.

[It's] "a big part of them and who they are. And so, they can see mommy do her thing in Spanish, they can hear it and feel it from a musical level," Aguilera said.

Gigi Hadid's Joyful Wisdom and Spring Fashion for InStyle US March 2022

Gigi Hadid's Joyful Wisdom and Spring Fashion for InStyle US March 2022 AOC Fashion

Supermodel Gigi Hadid projects a magnetic, joyful persona on the cover of InStyle US Magazine’s March 2022 issue. EIC Laura Brown describes Khai’s mom as “unselfconsciously animated”, as Hadid follows up her spectacular “sisterhood” images from the Versace Spring 2022 campaign with another announcement.

Netflix announced Hadid would be joining Tan France as co-host of the second season of ‘Next in Fashion’, a perfect next step in Gigi’s public life.

Julia Von Boehm styles Gigi in Alexander McQueen, Chanel, Gucci, Isabel Marant, Prada, Valentino and more, with jewelry galore lensed by Yulia Gorbachenko [IG] . / Hair by Bob Recine; Makeup by Erin Parsons

Chopard's Caroline Scheufele Will Bring Zambia's 'Insofu' Emerald to a Life of Luxury

Chopard's Caroline Scheufele Will Bring Zambia's 'Insofu' Emerald to a Life of Luxury AOC Jewelry News

The Chopard ‘Insofu’ Emerald weighs in the size of a champagne bottle. It’s named for elephants in Zambia’s Bantu language.

“The size and quality of the crystal make it a rare find indeed,” stated Sean Gilbertson, director of Gemfields, noting that it was also “setting a historic milestone for traceability back to the mine-of-origin, a holy grail for consumers” seeking reassurances on the credentials of their stones as it is the first emerald of this size and purity to meet traceability requirements.

“By purchasing a raw stone, we are able to follow its entire journey through to final creation. Chopard will cut the raw emerald and collect all the cut gems emerging from it….We ensure a complete chain of traceability, which is rare for [such] stones,” said Chopard’s copresident and artistic director Caroline Scheufele who noted that a “fully integrated supply chain” was what made “these treasures of nature so valuable to our clientele,” who despite the COVID-19 pandemic had shown “strong resilience and loyalty” to the house.

AOC has followed Chopard’s Caroline Scheufele for years, and we value deeply her leadership mission in the arena of sustainability, workers rights, and transparency of Chopard stones from discovery to individual ownership. Scheufele recalled her feeling at the discovery of the Insofu emerald as “surpassing any emotion [she] had ever known.”