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.
Fashion world got a major wakeup this morning with a preview of the January 2023 Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama campaign.
Yayoi Kusama, Age 93, Rolls Again with Louis Vuitton
LV makes a big move putting Gisele Bundchen front and center in a second, historical collaboration with revered Japanese creative Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s pre-eminent artists at age 93.
“One of the aspects of her [Yayoi Kusama’s] work is happiness, and we thought it would be really refreshing after the pandemic to have the worlds of Vuitton and the world of Kusama meet again,” Arnault explained. The successful first collaboration between the two global giants happened in 2012.
Spanish model Olivia Martin poses in Dior Beauty shots for the house’s core Miss Dior Fragrance.Lilly Marthe Ebener styles Martin in images by key Dior photographer Brigitte Niedermair.
Dior writes: “At Dior, we are dedicated to preserve biodiversity. For our Maison, this mission particularly resonates through our never-ending love of flowers. They are not only the beating heart of our creative vision, they are also the origin, present and future of beauty. In the context of COP 15, we are reminded ambitious actions are essential to preserve flowers from extinction.”
By 2030, 100% of Dior gardens and partner gardens will be operated in organic or regenerative agriculture. Additionally, Dior Beauty is committed to reducing their carbon emissions by 46% by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to +1.5°C.
Candice Swanepoel and her sustainable swimwear brand Tropic of C [IG] celebrate the brand’s classic styles with very modern cutouts, lensed by Eduardo Bravin [IG] .
Candice was an early user of econyl, a regenerated nylon product introduced in 2011 by Aquafil.
Econyl is made entirely from ocean and landfill waste, such as industrial plastic, fabric scraps from clothing manufacturing companies, old carpets and "ghost nets".
AOC believes that beautiful bodies live on a sustainable planet. We’ve always applauded Candice Swanepoel for building a brand from day 1, with sustainability beating beautifully in its heart.
Rolling Stone Magazine keeps up the blistering pace of their reporting on all matters related to Kanye West. In a new piece by Cheyenne Roundtree, Rolling Stone says that the rapper spoke of his admiration for Hitler during the making of 2004 Grammy-winning debut album ‘The College Dropout’.
West allegedly studied Nazi propaganda strategies and power-gaining tactics to formulate his own personal persona as a rapper, with the goal of using Nazi tactics to achieve his own fame and success.
Sharp Drop in Kanye West’s Republican Support December 2022 YouGov America Poll
In October, Republicans were split (45% favorable to 42% unfavorable) on their opinion of Ye in the You/Gov America poll. Now, just 26% have a favorable opinion of him and 65% have an unfavorable opinion.
Janine Benyus and the Biomimicry movement are gaining enormous respect in the world of product innovation and design. The biometric path is simple and described in four steps: quieting human cleverness; listening to life’s genius; echoing what we learn; and giving thanks.
Partnering with Nature is an eyebrow-raising metaphor for super-rational human minds coming to grips with understanding that human brilliance in innovation and scientific discovery may also kill planet Earth.
Men [and fewer women] should be partnering with Nature, not dominating her.
Brittney Griner remains airborne, with an expected touchdown at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas near San Antonio at about 11pm, Texas time.
Brittney arrived in Abu Dhabi by private plane from Moscow after her release by Russian authorities. Viktor Bout, a former arms dealer, came in on another private plane from Washington after being released by U.S. authorities.
Putin Signed New Anti-Gay Bill on Monday
AOC has followed this wonderful news of Griner’s release all day, as many reasons appeared as to why the star athlete is heading home. One of many reasons that hasn’t been mentioned is the law Russian President Vladimir Putin signed on Monday, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”
Christy Turlington supers up her always-smoldering sensuality in the new Calvin Klein Eternity fragrance campaign, sharing the spotlight with her beloved husband Ed Burns.
Photographer Lachlan Bailey [IG] has captured the couple over the years in images that speak to what is one of celebrity-world’s biggest love affairs.
Her dedication to the issue of global — and US — maternal health is well known in fashion world. Minutes ago as we were writing this post, Christy Turlington Burns tweeted in support of the SHINE for Autumn Act of 2022. Read on for details.
For the first time in its 80-year history, the prestigious School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) has rescinded the highly-valued, prestigious honorary doctorate it awarded to Kanye West in 2015.
In an email sent to members of the SAIC community today, the school’s president Elissa Tenny cited Ye’s recent “disturbing behaviors” and “dangerous statements” as the reasons behind the decision.
“His anti-Black, antisemitic, and incendiary statements, particularly those directed at Black and Jewish communities, are disgusting and condemnable,” Tenny wrote. “His words and actions have been painful for our entire community and, particularly, for those of us who feel that our identities and life experiences are under attack.”
Chanel show in Dakar now embedded. Chanel ambassador Pharrell Williams was on the ground in Dakar, spreading his ‘Humanrace’ message.
Fresh off his runway walk in the Dior Menswear show at Pyramid Giza, Egypt, Malick Bodian — cover model for this original How To Spend It November 2022 presentation was PROUDLY in Dakar, Senegal to take part in his home country festivities. Bodi took many images for fashion media.
Senegalese musician NIX shared his thoughts on Chanel coming to Dakar: “We have a culture that is very open to the world, we have been influenced by many things, which I see as a richness, and this generates an overflowing creativity today.”
The human desire for self-adornment is universal, and writing about copper jewelry trends should be a snap for most people. Not for Anne. I can make writing needlessly complicated, but in this case, the writing took me back to the continuously-revealing story of women’s history.
Only Anne of Carversville whips up a narrative around copper jewelry that takes us back to the dawn of human existence, and then out of Africa between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago into the Levant, a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia.
Background: in understanding the importance of human history and invention, jewelry was not very high on the list of primarily male researchers and scientists.
Frankly, jewelry as artifacts was considered inconsequential and frivolous in the story of human development. Copper jewelry was so frivolous that the existence of The Copper Age, dating from the mid-5th millennium BC, and ending with the beginning of the Bronze Age proper, in the late 4th to 3rd millennium BC, was barely worth mentioning in the scientific community.
You’ve heard of The Stone Age and the Bronze Age. But few of us — including me — knew about The Copper Age. The REAL history of copper jewelry starts to upset several thousands of years of assumptions around women’s lives.
1) Few of us believe the campaign ever came to life without the approval of Demna or someone very high up at Balenciaga, Demna undercuts his own fashion industry credibility.
2) Balenciaga threw Kim Kardashian, Nicole Kidman, Bella Hadid and more to the curb. The brand didn’t give a twit how Demna’s artistry might impact their careers and reputations.
3) America has angry vigilantes toting AR-15s and other high-capacity guns killing people at random — and many victims are members of the LGBTQ community, called groomers.
Unlike Nike’s Michael Jordan standalone partnership, where the two groups are separate but both flying under the Nike banner, the Adidas - Kanye West relationship was run under the Adidas organization. Separate teams were created for the Yeezy business, but the staff was Adidas for the most part.
According to Rolling Stone, the Adidas employees claimed that senior managers were aware of West’s “problematic behaviour” but “turned their moral compass off” and failed to protect its employees against “years of verbal abuse, vulgar tirades, and bullying attacks.”
West appears to have been a rude, crude, demanding, demeaning, controlling, sleezy, misogynist provocateur in his role as a critical Adidas partner.
Republican 2024 presidential wannabe Mike Pompeo called Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers and a member of the AFL–CIO, “the most dangerous person in the world.”
If you ask, “Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?” It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing.
Note the use of the word ‘filth’ in referring to America’s school curriculums. That word really got my attention because it’s one deeply associated — actually programmed into our brains — with our political views.
Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele has left the Kering-owned luxury brand. Note:
The former accessories designer is credited with reviving Gucci's popularity with undeniably Gucci flamboyant and gender-fluid styles. That can be part of the problem in a fashion culture that is always on the move.
François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering, said of Michele: “His passion, his imagination, his ingenuity and his culture put Gucci centre stage, where its place is. I wish him a great next chapter in his creative journey.”
In truly splendid news, Tom Ford has sold his brand to The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. for $2.8 billion. The sale takes one of the world’s biggest beauty companies into the world of luxury fashion.
In this moment when American voters have beaten back — but claim no victory over — the winds of Republican-party authoritarianism and Christian nationalism, we are joyous to celebrate the business marriage of a working class daughter born Josephine Ester Mentzer to Hungarian Jewish immigrants in Queens, New York in 1908 and Thomas Carlyle Ford born August 27, 1961 in Austin, Texas to realtors Shirley Burton and Thomas David Ford.
Adidas announced that Bjørn Gulden will take over as CEO on 1 January 2023, after leading a successful Puma rerival. The announcement should help to stabilize financial markets’ perception of Adidas, given Gulden’s leadership at the brand as senior vice president of apparel and accessories in the 1990s,.
“We are very pleased to welcome Bjørn Gulden back at Adidas. [He] brings almost 30 years of experience in the sporting goods and footwear industry. As a result, he knows the industry extremely well and draws on a rich network in sport and retail,” said Thomas Rabe, chairman of the supervisory board. “Bjørn already served Adidas successfully for seven years in the 1990s. As CEO of Puma, he reinvigorated the brand and led the company to record results.
Ralph Lauren celebrates the holidays with ‘The Gift of Togetherness’, a collection of glamorous humans starring Shalom Harlow. Add to the cast Amane Taniguchi, Andreea Diaconu, Coralie Jean-Francois, Dae Na, Daryl Dismond, Ella Rattigan, Hamid Onifadé, Jeenu Mahadevan, Lulu Tenney, James Turlington, Lucky Blue Smith, Mariam de Vinzelle, Sacha Quenby, Simon Nessman, and Tyson Beckford.
Meryl Griffith & Michel Botbol act as stylists the Ralph Lauren Holiday 2022 Campaign| The Gift of Togetherness with video shot by Gordon von Steiner and images by Alasdair McLellan./ Hair by Akki Shirakawa; makeup by Sally Branka
On Thursday Nets guard Kyrie Irving was suspended indefinitely for promoting an anti-Semitic film based on the book “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America”. The book promotes several anti-Semitic tropes, including the despicable lie that the Holocaust never happened.
Late Friday, Nov 4, NIKE suspended its relationship with Kyrie Irving, including the introduction of his new NIKE KYRIE 8 shoe. ESPN reported last May that dealings with Kyrie Irving were so complex for Nike, that there was a good chance that Nike would not renew his contract at the end of the 2022/23 season.
Nike has produced Irving’s popular signature shoe since 2014 and is taking the financial hit on cancelling the Kyrie 8 launch.
“At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech, and we condemn any form of antisemitism,” the company said.
British Vogue’s December 2022 issue drops with four covers lensed by Scott Trindle [IG] and featuring actors Elizabeth Debicki, Sienna Miller, Simone Ashley and Yasmine Finney. Jack Borkett styles the fashion project, with hair by Eugene Souleiman and makeup by Vassilis Theotokis.
AOC includes a quick interview synopsis and interview links for the four winning-women actors.
