Solange Knowles Writes Love Letter From Jamaica, Lensed By Jackie Nickerson For Dazed Magazine | Archives

Solange Knowles Writes Love Letter From Jamaica, Lensed By Jackie Nickerson For Dazed Magazine | Archives

Talent Solange Knowles is styled by Katie Shillingford in ‘Runaway Bay’, lensed by Jackie Nickerson for Dazed Magazine Spring/Summer 2018. Knowles pens a seven-part thank you and reflection on Jamaica. She begins:

I’ve been following Joni. First through her words, then through her truth, then through her melodies and the way I dance and drown in them. Then through her jazz, through chords that ease themselves into one another without ever showing their shadows. Through her exodus. To Topanga, and then to Laurel, and now to Runaway Bay, without even trying to find her.

I’ve been looking at photos of this house in Runaway Bay for five years. Wanting to know if it could tell my secrets. If it could hold me. If I could write music, and drink wine, and draw sketches, and sleep well naked and invent new ways to say how I feel. If I could burn my sage, and wash my hands with Florida water right there on the porch until I feel renewed. 

Solange was referencing legendary singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell who spent time in Jamaica, unable to sing or birth lyrics. Instead, writes Vogue, Mitchell painted on the walls of the bedroom of Itopia, a stone-walled house built in the 1600s as part of the Cardiff Hall estate on the North Coast of Jamaica.

Solange posted a now-deleted Instagram message: “Joni Mitchell painted murals in this house. I wrote songs in this house.”

The name ‘Runaway Bay’ comes not from the fact that this is a perfect getaway spot in Jamaica. That would be modern marketing. ‘Runaway Bay’ was an escape route for slaves The area is rich in caves, giving runaway slaves both shelter and secrecy as a place to regroup before choosing whether to remain on the island and move on. Read The Jamaica Maroons and the Danger of Categorical Thinking.

Another gift in the photo shoot is Shillingford’s choice of Paolina Russo’s athletic corset, worn on the cover. Russo won the prestigious L’Oreal Professionnel Young Talent Award at the Saint Martins BA fashion show in May 2018. She is now working on a Masters at Saint Martins, with industry eyes lasered on her prodigious talent and visionary future in fashion.

Eye: Central Saint Martin's Paolina Russo Is Poised For Mega Rise With Sexy, Fresh, Upcycled Fashion Vision

Eye: Central Saint Martin's Paolina Russo Is Poised For Mega Rise With Sexy, Fresh, Upcycled Fashion Vision

Recent Central Saint Martins grad Paolina Russo won the school’s prestigious L’Oréal Professionnel Young Talent Award for a BA collection very timely in the #MeToo era. Russo imagines her sexy woman in up-cycled corsets made from deconstructed soccer cleats and balls, hockey helmets, and other gym-class staples. Russo won the prize for her ‘I Forgot Home’ in stiff competition that included 100 other students at Central Saint Martins, a school with an acceptance rate of 7%.

In 2016 Paolina Russo assumed the prestigious couture internship at Maison Martin Margiela under the creative direction of John Galliano. The designer was inspired by Russo's work and aesthetic citing her as a major inspiration in a conversation with Tim Blanks at the BOF "Voices" conference.

Eye: Dior Lady Art #3 Is 11 Women Artists Worldwide, Inspiring 2019 AOC Study of Their Extreme Talent

Dior Lady Art #3 Is 11 Women Artists Worldwide, Inspiring 2019 AOC Study of Their Extreme Talent

Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri launched her third Dior Lady Art project in early December 2018, at Miami’s Art Basel. For the first time, this third edition of the maison’s creative initiative, Dior Lady Art, is comprised of an all-woman cast of 11 artists transforming the classic Lady bag into works of art, The bags will now launch in January 2019 in expanded artistry by the same women at select Dior outlets worldwide. (See prior Dior Lady Art projects here. )

Earlier this week, Vogue.com profiled Danish jeweler and ceramist Jo Riis-Hansen, and her words got my attention. “I think the world is so fast,” says Riis-Hansen from her hometown, as her children, 10 and 6, play in the background. “I love fashion, I do, but it’s so fast. I think jewelry needs to slow down a bit, too. [When you buy a piece of jewelry] I think it’s important to [ask]: Where does it come from? Who is this person that made it? Did someone actually put real human or spiritual energy it? That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy the fast-fashion [stuff], I’m just pursuing another way of making jewelry, one that [fulfills] a personal need for me, to be able to put all these emotions into [my work].”

In our fast-paced, digital and often disposable world, we rarely understand the answers to Riis-Hansen’s questions. Yet, it’s well known that younger people, in particular, are very focused on these questions about the projects they are buying into.

It’s my intention to answer these questions around my own GlamTribal Design Collection. But after installing this rather laborious entry around Dior Lady Art handbags, it occurs to me that we have a wonderful foundation from which to explore these women artists — their work, their philosophies around art, life, politics and all related topics. We can track their exhibitions and their communities, the experiences that have informed their artistic visions in an ongoing project throughout 2019.

As opposed to this post being just another fashionable data bit in the glut of information on the Internet, we will slow down a bit and really understand the women artists who were chosen by Dior Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri to represent this great luxury brand in its third Dior Lady Art initiative.

Ancient DNA Changes Everything We Know About The Evolution of Elephants

A study by Meyer et al reconfigures the elephant family tree, placing the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) closer to the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), than to the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), which was once thought to be its closest living relative. Image credit: Asier Larramendi Eskorza / Julie McMahon.

Ancient DNA Changes Everything We Know About The Evolution of Elephants

By Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand. First published on The Conversation Africa.

For a long time, zoologists assumed that there were only two species of elephant: one Asian and one African. Then genetic analyses suggested that the African Elephant could be divided into two distinct species, the African Forest and African Savannah elephants.

Now a new elephant has been added to the mix. The palaeoloxodon antiquus has been extinct for 120 000 years. This elephant roamed Europe and western Asia during the last ice age, about 400 000 years ago. A study of its DNA shows that this supposedly European animal is actually the African forest elephants’ closest relative. Another study by the same team found that at a genetic level, it may even have more in common with the modern African forest elephant than the African savannah elephant.

This study changes everything we thought we knew about the evolutionary history and ancestry of modern elephants and their closest relatives. It also shows that the African elephant’s lineage was not confined to Africa; the animals actually went out of the continent, which we didn’t know before. It roamed Europe and – through a lot of interbreeding – left its genetic mark far from its original stomping grounds.

The new find, based on DNA from fossils found in Germany, may also shed light on a DNA discrepancy that has puzzled scientists for some time.

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

As the Trump wrecking machine increasingly rattles much of America, progressives, Democrats and centrists alike got an unexpected blow in the gut on Friday with news that beloved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, was in surgery at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. Notorious RBG, as the pop icon Justice is called, is recovering from her third bout with cancer with the removal of two nodules from her left lung.

Sloan Kettering doctors insist that Ginsburg’s lung cancer did not spread to other areas of her body, leaving weeping Americans believing that she will make a full recovery.

Weeks ago, Ginsburg fell in her office, fracturing several ribs. During her treatment, scans revealed the cancerous growths. Even cancer surgery didn’t get in the Supreme’s way, as Her Honor cast a deciding vote from her hospital bed against US President Donald Trump’s attempts to place new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the US.

EYE: Misty Copeland + Calvin Royal III By Albert Watson For Pirelli 2019 Calendar | Misty On Offering New Black Role Models

EYE: Misty Copeland + Calvin Royal III By Albert Watson For Pirelli 2019 Calendar | Misty On Offering New Black Role Models

AOC drops into Vogue Italia as Misty Copeland, the first African American Principal dancer of the American Ballet Theater, talks about her appearance in the 2019 Pirelli calendar. Photographer Albert Watson pairs Copeland with Calvin Royal III, an ABT soloist since 2017 . Valentina Bonelli interviews Misty about her battles to bring diversity into the world of classical ballet.

Misty Copeland has long articulated the intense degree of racism embedded in classical ballet in America and across the world. George Balanchine imposes a singular vision of a ballet dancer as a person with light skin and the lithe, ultra-low BMI body of a teenager.

Copeland speaks to Vogue Italia of the social media criticism of her with words that ring true to those hurled at tennis great Serena Williams. The bodies of both black women are unsuitable for greatness with their too developed muscles, abundant breasts and dark skin tweet the social media harassers.

Grateful for former president Barack Obama giving her a White House platform to join creators in advancing an expanded vision of black talent in the arts, Copeland believes that the momentum has established new roots in black communities — in spite of the Trump effect.

Raf Simons Leaves Calvin Klein | Brand Won't Show During New York Fashion Week

Raf Simons Leaves Calvin Klein | Brand Won't Show During New York Fashion Week

On Friday the Belgian designer Raf Simons and Calvin Klein announced that they were parting ways amicably eight months before his contact was up for renewal. Calvin Klein will not show during New York fashion week.

EYE: Chinyere Ezie Educates Prada On Why Fat Red Lips On Black Bodies Are Not Good Trinkets In America

EYE: Chinyere Ezie Educates Prada On Why Fat Red Lips On Black Bodies Are Not Good Trinkets In America

The best paragraphs in Robin Givhan’s WaPo commentary “Seriously, Prada, what were you thinking?: Why the fashion industry keeps bumbling into racist imagery” isn’t the narrative around Prada’s utter stupidity in their SoHo window display of items from their Pradamalia collection.

AOC readers know that we do not hop on the bandwagon of every alleged act of fashion industry cultural appropriation or racism. But Givhan is correct and we concur: what in goddesses name were you thinking Prada?

Let’s take a different approach here because Givan has done a superb job of also telling the experience of Chinyere Ezie’s reaction upon seeing the Prada store window in Soho. We will quote liberally in a moment, but let’s back up even further and introduce Prada to this woman. From her website:

Chinyere Ezie (Cheen-Yer-Ray Ay-Zee-Ay) is a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer and social justice activist who specializes in constitutional litigation and anti-discrimination work. In 2016, Chinyere was named one of the country's Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40. 

Chinyere is a Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights where she focuses on racial justice, gender justice, and LGBT rights work. Chinyere previously worked as a Staff Attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center LGBT Rights Project, where she was lead counsel for transgender rights activist Ashley Diamond in her suit against the Georgia Department of Corrections. Chinyere also worked as a Trial Attorney at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission where she successfully represented employees who had been subjected to discrimination--securing a $5.1 million dollar trial verdict. 

Chinyere is a William J. Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, where she served as President of Columbia Outlaws and Editor in Chief of the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. 

She also clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and worked as an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen, and Hamilton LLP in New York City.

In her free time, Chinyere enjoys photography, graphic design, and spending time with her wife and puppy.

Based on her stellar credentials, Chinyere Ezie more than qualifies as Prada’s target customer, although she is not one. Now, via Robin Givhan’s narrative, we share Ezie’s experience on meeting up with Prada’s SoHo window. Personally, I think all the great African goddesses were her spirit wings in this painful life episode, quietly hopping as invisible spirits on her shoulders when Ezie left DC’s National Museum of African American History and Culture for the return trip to New York.

Life In A Heavy Space

LVMH Acquires Luxury Travel's Belmond Hotels | Will Bernard Arnault Help Save The Elephants

LVMH Acquires Luxury Travel's Belmond Hotels | Will Bernard Arnault Help Save The Elephants

AOC awoke Saturday morning to news that LVMH has set in motion the acquisition of Belmond Hotels. “Belmond, a fast-growing company based in London, offers its wealthy customers some of the most opulent travel experiences money can buy in settings like the Hotel Cipriani in Venice, the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro and Orient Express trains connecting major European cities,” wrote The New York Times.

LVMH, the world’s largest luxury company based on revenues from brands like Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Fendi, offered to pay $25 a share for Belmond, a premium of more than 40 percent on the company’s closing price, in a deal valued at $2.6 billion.

The deal emphasized the limitless financial resources available to the world’s very rich customers. as well as the ongoing move away from buying ‘things’ and the growing appetite for ‘experiences’. This transition to the value of ‘experiences’ is pronounced among the entire younger generation, regardless of income, and dovetails well with their environmental concerns over accumulating more stuff.

Perhaps it was no coincidence that Friday’s Porter Edit had a sponsored post from Belmond Africa, based in South Africa and Botswana. The luxury hotel jumping off point gave us an opportunity to update the hot topic of the well-being of Botswana’s elephants, the largest elephant population in Africa and one that has been relatively stable until disputed reports of almost 90 dead elephants hit headlines in September.

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

Mitch Landrieu Launches E Pluribus Unum Fund For Racial Reconciliation With Backing By Emerson Collective

The removal of the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, was the second of four Confederate monuments scheduled by then New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu for relocation in advance of the city’s 300 anniversary. The larger-than-life image of Davis atop an ornate granite pedestal roughly 15-feet high was erected in 1911, nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.

A month earlier workers dismantled an obelisk that was erected in 1891 to honor members of the Crescent City White League who in 1874 fought in the Reconstruction-era Battle of Liberty Place against the racially integrated New Orleans police and state militia.

Two other works were also removed in the summer of 2017: a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E Lee that has stood in a traffic circle, named Lee Circle, in the city’s central business district since 1884, and an equestrian statue of P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general. 

Former Alabama Senator and Attorney General in the Trump Administration Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III bears the Confederate general’s name.

Protests on both sides of the Confederate statue debate were fierce, prompting Mayor Landrieu to make an eloquent, emotional and gifted speech on the subject of removing the Confederate monuments on Friday, May 19, 2017.

The full text of Landrieu’s speech was published by The New York Times. I consider it to be one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard — from its sweeping beginning to its soul-wrenching end.

Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way — for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans — the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando De Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more. Read on.

Nancy Pelosi's Max Mara 'Fire Coat' Worn To Obama's Second Inauguration Will Be Reissued

Nancy Pelosi's Max Mara 'Fire Coat' Worn To Obama's Second Inauguration Will Be Reissued

Nancy Pelosi's 2013 Max Mara ‘Fire Coat’ is about to make a comeback!! ‘Beale’ Street Director Barry Jenkins must be orgasmic.

On Wednesday evening, Max Mara announced that the jacket setting Twitter blazing was its "Fire Coat," which the Italian fashion house last sold in 2013. However, because the coat is drawing so much attention, the Italian fashion brand confirms that it will reissue it in 2019 in a range of colors, including Pelosi's red/rust shade.

Now all we need is 'Beale Street' director Barry Jenkins -- who really was the catalyst behind the red coat blast -- and Pelosi in a DC ad shot, and fashion has made history.

In a statement, Max Mara Creative Director Ian Griffiths said:

The FIRE COAT is a boule shaped coat with a funnel collar — which is very feminine — but it has a shoulder and sleeve that are cut quite sharply. So whilst the body is soft, the shoulders give it structure. That contrast between masculine and feminine gives it modernity. This coat was designed over 6 years ago; a good coat is a life companion so it should be designed not to date. Ms Pelosi wore this coat to the Presidential Inauguration in 2013, and again for her historic meeting at the White House in 2018, so it clearly means something to her. You develop an emotional relationship with a coat like nothing else in your wardrobe and Max Mara coats are much more than just clothes. They represent lasting values, they project personal strength and glamour. I can imagine why Ms Pelosi chose to wear the FIRE COAT for this important moment and I'm honoured.

Elephant Conservation Update From Botswana Includes Pending Prince Harry Transfer Of Elephants To Zambia

Elephant Conservation Update From Botswana Includes Pending Prince Harry Transfer Of Elephants To Zambia

PORTER escapes to Belmond Savute Elephant Lodge, an adventurous tented hideaway in Botswana’s Savute Channel, part of Chobe National Park and boasting the highest concentration of elephants in Africa.

Belmond Savute prides itself on a “happy marriage of style and substance; for the eco-conscious traveler”, offering “the tents’ sustainable design features (that) include the removal of all concrete, the use of eco-friendly composite bamboo decking in the principal areas, and a 95% solar-grid system for power.” 

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Elephant Deaths in Botswana

Since September 2018, controversy has swirled in Botswana around the story that 87 elephants were reported to be “killed by poachers’ in Botswana. The high-impact story originated with “Elephants Without Borders,” an NGO in the USA and Botswana surveying the elephant population.

Under the new government of Mokgweetsi Masisi, Botswana’s parliament is exploring its ban on trophy hunting, citing the large size of Botswana’s elephant population and the growing issue of human-elephant conflic (HEC) in the country.

Politicians have quoted the Botswana elephant population to be as large as 237,000. However the African Elephant Status Report (AESR) estimates Botswana’s elephant population to be 131,626 individuals migrating across an area of 228,073 square kilometres. The vast majority of these elephants occur in the northern region that includes Chobe, Moremi, and the Okavango Delta.

Felicity Jones Talks Playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg In 'The Illusionist' For Porter Edit Dec. 7, 2018

Felicity Jones Talks Playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg In 'The Illusionist' For Porter Edit Dec. 7, 2018

Actor Felicity Jones graces the pages of Porter Edit’s Dec. 7 issue, styled by Tracy Taylor in ‘The Illusionist’ by Matthew Sprout.

Jones was in Washington, DC Tuesday night for the premier of the new biopic ‘On the Basis of Sex’, in which Jones plays Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Notorious RBG, now 85, posed with Jones and also Armie Hammer who plays her late husband Martin Ginsburg, and Justin Theroux, who plays former ACLU legal director Melvin Wulf. Read the opening night details at The Hollywood Reporter.

Back to Porter Edit, Jane Mulkerrins interviews Jones about playing heroic women.

While the film documents Ginsburg’s path to the highest legal appointment in the land, a path beset by sexism and misogyny, it is also a portrait of her very modern marriage to fellow lawyer Marty, played in the film by Armie Hammer, who supported his wife’s career unreservedly. Marty did all the cooking at home, says Jones: “They believed that gender stereotypes limit both men and women, that the patriarchy holds everyone back.” The apartment, she says, remains full of “the remnants of their life together – including racks of Marty’s cooking pots”. Now, Jones does not take her own opportunities for granted. “You’re not just expected to settle down and have children,” she notes. “If you want to do that, then that’s equally as valid a choice. But if you have ambition, why not follow it?”

The film ‘On the Basis of Sex’ opens in US theaters on Dec. 25 and in the UK on Feb. 8.

'Beale Street' Director Barry Jenkins Is Crazy In Love With Nancy Pelosi's Ravishing Red Max Mara Coat

'Beale Street' Director Barry Jenkins Is Crazy In Love With Nancy Pelosi's Ravishing Red Max Mara Coat

Barry Jenkins is in the news as Director of ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, nominated for a 2019 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama Film. Jenkins was also nominated for screenplay, along with Regina King for supporting actress.

Based on James Baldwin’s 1974 novel of the same name, ‘Beale Street’ tells the 70s love story of a young black Harlem couple, Tish and Fonny. Devoted to each other since childhood, the young lovers are torn apart when Fonny is falsely accused and jailed for rape.

In a smile-worthy move, Jenkins had other matters on his mind after Nancy Pelosi’s epic TV performance at the White House Tuesday, when Donald Trump tried to negotiate a budget deal live before the American people. It did not go well for the US president, although Trump’s supporters surely disagree, especially if you like to see Trump constantly interrupting the next Speaker of the House and the most formidable woman in US politics.

Anne's Response to Women's March 'Founders' Response To Alyssa Milano and Theressa Shook

Anne's Response to Women's March 'Founders' Response To Alyssa Milano and Theressa Shook

This Women's March Founders battle goes on, and it's tough for me to see where it ends. My inability to buy into these words puts me on the outs with Women's March leaders, seeing no way back towards unity.

After what I've personally been through with these leaders, the words "As a Black woman, it hurts me to see the recent headlines regarding this movement. While you may think you’re helping, you are tearing a movement that was built on unity apart. This is not the time to strengthen the wedge between white women and people of color" are utter poppycock.

I'm sorry but this is Donald Trump talk #101. These four women wouldn't even allow Hillary Clinton to be one of over 20 honored at the Women's March. Do NOT talk to me about driving wedges, and this is BEFORE I share what has been privately said to me.

There is NOTHING in the quoted paragraph below that represents an olive branch. Rather, it's a reconciliation ceremony in which injured parties shares their own testimony. In particular white women are supposed to sit quietly and listen . . . indefinitely . . . for years.

I support reconciliation ceremonies and Laurene Powell Jobs is investing in the possibility of such an event in America over slavery. She is concerned it will become a horror show only, and is heavily involved with leaders in South Africa who have gone through this process to understand how to make such a reconciliation process successful in America. Her partner in this possibility is New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu.

My focus is saving America from Trump, cultivating a new democracy and also working for women's rights worldwide. There is not an indefinite time horizon on my life, and I am focused on both purpose and results. Decades of my life have focused on racial reconciliation in America and I've done my part. My eye is now on a larger ball -- aligning myself with hundreds/thousands of women of color worldwide who are willing to bury the ax with white women and move forward.

The leaders of the Women's March have no such goal. It's a Sartre play with no way out.

Queen Rania Speaks To Topic of 'Fake News' + 'Truth' At Arab Social Media Awards In Dubai

Queen Rania Speaks To Topic of 'Fake News' + 'Truth' At Arab Social Media Awards In Dubai

HM Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan was honored in Dubai on Monday, presented with the Influential Personality of the Year Award at this year’s Arab Social Media Influencers Summit. by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Queen Rania seized the moment to deliver a stirring keynote address during the third annual summit, urging attendees to use digital platforms for the good of humanity, in an era of “fake news”.

“Online, the plain truth is not appealing enough to be circulated and liked or to command power in the virtual world, despite the fact that it has never been more accessible than today. The truth is losing ground to emotional rhetoric and sensational rumors,” Queen Rania stated. “We owe it to the truth to seek it out and distribute it. It might not be the most appealing or fascinating, but not all that glitters is gold. Let us aim to give truth the final word.”

Queen Rania launched her first official social media pages back in 2009, and AOC celebrated it. The royal reminded her audience that it is estimated that the average person will spend over five years of his or her life on social media. “Social media has achieved much of what we had expected from it, but unfortunately, we still managed to transfer our human barriers to this world,” HM added, exploring the ways in which digital platforms have changed from spreading hope and connecting humans in a barrier-free landscape. “We now listen not to communicate, but to respond, closing ranks and isolating ourselves among those who resemble us and confirm our own convictions.”

Moving from the downside to the positive opportunity of social media, Queen Rania urged influencers to maintain a steady focus on positive change.

Adrienne Jüliger + Kim van der Laan In 'Riders of Destiny' By Tom Craig For Vogue Japan January 2019

Adrienne Jüliger + Kim van der Laan In 'Riders of Destiny' By Tom Craig For Vogue Japan January 2019

Models Adrienne Jüliger and Kim van der Laan are styled by Aurora Sansone in Dior Resort 2019 for ‘Riders of Destiny’, lensed by Tom Craig for Vogue Japan January 2019./ Beauty by Daniel Rull

Maria Grazia Chiuri was inspired by the Mexican tradition of Escaramuza for her Dior Resort 2019 collection called Diorodeo. Chiuri brought over a band of female riders from Phoenix, Arizona to celebrate the choreographed equestrian sport performed by women in traditional costumes, when she unveiled the collection at France’s Chateau de Chantilly.

A few weeks ago, AOC featured Jennifer Lawrence appearing in the Dior Resort ad campaign, a spread that ran into pc headwinds.

Phoebe Robinson, comedian and host of the “2 Dope Queens”podcast, criticized the ad for its location and for not including a Mexican model.

“Lol. Wut?! Sooooooooo, #Dior & #JenniferLawrence wanna celebrate traditional Mexican women riders thru a ‘modern lens’ …by having a rich white woman named Jennifer be the face of this campaign?” she wrote alongside a re-post of the campaign video.

“And like they couldn’t think of a better landscape to shoot than in California?! Hmm, I dunno, maybe…like…shoot…in…Mexico…with …a…Mexican…actress like Salma Hayek, Karla Souza, Jessica Alba, Selena Gomez, Eva Longoria, or many others. But I guess they were all unavailable, so you had to go with Jennifer Lawrence,” Robinson wrote.

She said that using ‘modern’ to describe the campaign was, “ignorant and gross,” and asked her followers to comment with names of Mexican designers she could lend support to.

Max Mara Creative Director Ian Griffiths Talks Judy Chicago + Bad-Ass Successful Women

Eye: Max Mara Creative Director Ian Griffiths Talks Judy Chicago + Bad-Ass Successful Women

“I’ve been described as the most influential designer you’ve never heard of,” Ian Griffiths , Creative Director of Max Mara for 31 years told Harper’s Bazaar Australia in an interview published online December 9. Griffiths’ anonymity was about to be blown, when US House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — soon to be Madame Speaker again — wore her 2013 brick red Max Mara coat to a December 11 budget-funding showdown at the White House.

Hours later, Pelosi and her ‘Fire Coat’ were total bad-ass legend as big names clamored to know where to buy her coat. Griffiths stepped out of the shadows to talk his vision for confident, powerful women to Pelosi’s posse. His comments in the Harper’s interview echo the sentiments he expressed in announcing that Pelosi’s coat was headed back to stores in the next collection.

On December 4, Griffiths further defined the Max Mara woman as “successful. She’s made it on her own terms and she wants to be taken seriously.” Those words certainly describe Nancy Pelosi. The designer talked with Town & Country about Max Mara’s collab with Judy Chicago, and their release of a tee shirt to promote the artist’s major retrospective at the ICA Miami.

“As a long standing feminist artist who has found a powerful voice, Judy is the ideal partner for Max Mara—the collaboration is a reminder that classic does not mean conservative.”

One of her seminal pieces, ‘Bigamy Hood’, a painted car hood, served as inspiration for the t-shirt collab with Max Mara. Chicago described the collaboration as “an exciting challenge that required a considerable amount of time, creativity, and drawings.” The resulting design is what Griffiths calls “iconic Judy Chicago” but in a “classic Max Mara palette,” meaning a wearable, but still playfully radical t-shirt. “It underlines the brand’s commitment to the empowerment of women,” Griffiths says.

‘Bigamy Hood’ by Judy Chicago

EYE: Albert Watson Unveils Pirelli 2019 Calendar With Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta + Julia Garner

EYE: Albert Watson Unveils Pirelli 2019 Calendar With Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta + Julia Garner

The 2019 Pirelli calendar stars several of the world’s most famous women including Gigi Hadid, Misty Copeland, Laetitia Casta and Julia Garner with backup from Alexander Wang (with Gigi Hadid), Calvin Royal III (with Misty Copeland), Astrid Eika (with Julia Garner), and Sergei Polunin (with Laetitia Casta) — all lensed by celebrity photographer Albert Watson.

While the Pirelli calendar is more sensual than last year’s by Tim Walker, it is born of the #MeToo movement. The staged scenes of sex and debauchery — best lensed by Terry Richardson’s infamous image of Eniko Mihalik eating a banana — are gone.

Albert Watson, who is known for his cinematic images, chose to "show women who were dreaming of things."

The narratives were shot in Miami and New York and revolve around four glamorous female movie characters imagining their future success. Copeland, a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater, plays the role of an aspiring dancer biding her time at a Miami strip club; Hadid is a stylish but bored and melancholy heiress; Casta performs as a bohemian painter; and actor Julia Garner plays a photographer.

"The Pirelli calendar was, at the bottom roots, a pinup calendar for mechanics when they changed tires," Watson said at his vast Manhattan studio last month.

"They held onto the sexy thing for a long period of time, and when it came time for me to do it, (it) seemed wrong to take models to the beach to take their tops off. It seemed out of time with the #MeToo movement."

Serena Williams Launches Miami Popup While Joining Forbes 2018 Most Powerful Women List

Serena Williams Launches Miami Popup While Joining Forbes 2018 Most Powerful Women List

Serena Williams is an ultimate icon of the strong, sophisticated, sexy woman. In the last decade of AOC, I’ve called her the Smart Sensuality woman. Serena didn’t add “with heart” to her list of descriptors, but based on her own social activism, I know “with heart” is on the list of traits of women seeking their own voices by shopping at the champ’s new pop-up shop at the luxe Faena hotel during Miami's Art Basel. Guests at Wednesday night’s opening party for her Serena Collection included fellow tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.

"I want everyone to be able to do that and to step into their power," she said Wednesday night at the launch of her first pop-up shop, open until December 29th.

Everything in the Serena line, from a black sequined top with the word "Unbothered" to a crisp, white button-down that says "Slay" in red letters, is under $200.