In an era of fashion-logo fatigue, Tiffany’s decision last year to launch a new collection with logos all over it looked like a pretty bold move. But it seems to have paid off.
Michael Kors, the American manufacturer of brightly colored leather handbags, gold-embellished accessories, and cotton caftans, spooked investors yesterday (May 27) with a quarterly earnings report containing a rare miss on sales.
It’s been rough for Etsy since the craft marketplace went public in April.
Hillary Clinton launched a shop selling promotional items for her 2016 presidential bid this morning. The standout item among the “I ♥ Hillary” plastic tumblers and “I’m with Hillary” bumper stickers, is a red, short-sleeved t-shirt printed with the lapels, pockets, and buttoned-front of one of Clinton’s famous pantsuits. (The wearer must provide her own pants.)
You have probably heard by now that a woman wearing flat shoes—albeit, flats with rhinestones—was turned away from the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival this week, due to inappropriate footwear. It seems this happened to a handful of women above the age of 50 (who knew they were even allowed at Cannes!?) and even to one amputee.
US president Barack Obama, a friend to bees and other pollinating insects in peril, has unveiled his national strategy (pdf) to mitigate honey bee loss, increase the Monarch butterfly population, and restore the habitats of both insects, whose health is essential to our food supply. The program will depend heavily on federal agencies and will also involve Mexico and Canada, since bees and butterflies know nothing of state laws and don’t really care about borders.
As Urban Outfitters has fought to recapture the imagination—or at least the market share—of millennials, its Anthropologie brand has carried the company with strong sales of its more mature women’s offerings. (Hemlines at Anthropologie generally fall much lower on the legs than those at Urban Outfitters, and “rompers” do not warrant categorization on the website.)
Brazilian surfers are riding high. Last year Gabriel Medina, a native of São Paulo state just shy of his 21st birthday, became the first Brazilian to win a World Surf League (formerly ASL) Championship title. Adriano de Souza, another Brazilian surfer, leads world rankings at the moment. And just yesterday, their 20-year-old countryman Filipe Toledo, won the Oi Rio Pro and secured the second place in world rankings.
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May in New York City is glorious: another hellish winter has melted away, tulips bloom in the city’s parks, and the Mister Softee truck emerges from hibernation. For the fashion set, the season is marked by the Met Gala, which opens the spring fashion exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s sun-filled Temple of Dendur wing was buzzing this morning with journalists and patrons of the museum, ready to preview the new Costume Institute exhibit that will be feted tonight with fashion’s biggest party of the year—the Anna Wintour-hosted Met Gala.
The Met Gala, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s fundraiser and exhibition opening for the museum’s Costume Institute, is not just New York City’s biggest society event of the year: It has become a world-class red carpet for fashion. The party, which will happen tonight (May 4), has the dazzle of Hollywood stars, the power of New York’s arts patrons, and the fashion industry clout—and crowd—that comes with Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, the driving force behind the gala.
Delta Airlines has announced that American fashion designer Zac Posen will be dressing the airline’s flight attendants beginning in 2018. Naturally, the airline is pitching the partnership as a way to “bring American glamour back to flying,” which is often the way such designer-airline collaborations are spun.
In the early moments of Iris, the documentary’s silver-haired star admires photos of her wedding in 1948, kicking up a wedge-heeled, ankle-strapped sandal.
The comedian John Oliver delivered a well-researched and expertly-executed tirade about the dangerous—and morally questionable—implications of outrageously cheap clothing on his HBO show Last Week Tonight:
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It has been two years since the Rana Plaza Complex outside Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,130 people inside, most of whom were female garment workers. The tragedy launched an imperative to protect workers’ safety in Bangladesh, which is one of the world’s top three producers of clothing (pdf, p.7). A deadly lack of fire safety equipment and marked exits, forced labor, child labor, and the freedom for workers to organize are among the many issues that still need to be addressed.
Petrobras says an enormous corruption scandal has cost it R$6.2 billion ($2.1 billion). The disclosure—part of an earnings report that had been delayed 159 days after auditors refused to sign off on Petrobras’ financial statements—marks the first time Brazil’s state-controlled oil giant has placed a price tag on the alleged bribery payments.
Earlier this week, Quartz asserted that the new cookbook Genius Recipes has the ingredients to be the classic cookbook in the post-internet age: an anthology of 100 internet-tested, iconic, and fool-proof recipes.
In the US and the UK, designers, retailers, and celebrities have been admonished for appropriating traditional design elements—whether “Navajo-inspired” prints or full-feathered headdresses—from Native Americans.
Why would anyone with a Wi-Fi connection buy a cookbook in 2015? Of course there are the artistically photographed tomes of celebrity chefs that double as coffee-table books or treatises on food politics. But when it comes to cookbooks as they are meant to be used—as cookie batter and tomato sauce-stained references—hasn’t the internet rendered them useless? Cooking one’s way through a single chef’s repertoire might get you a book-and-movie deal, but it’s unlikely to get a reliably delicious and fuss-free meal on the table every time. That’s what the internet is for.
Karl Lagerfeld, creative director of Chanel and Fendi and enterprising cat owner, has received a custom-made, gold-banded Apple watch. Lagerfeld’s bodyguard and right-hand man, Sébastien Jondeau, thanked Apple for the gift via Instagram. Apple has actively courted the fashion community, wherein an acknowledgment from ”Kaiser Karl” is no small gesture.
Brazil’s federal police arrested João Vaccari Neto, the treasurer of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff’s worker’s party (PT), at his home in São Paulo today for alleged involvement in a corruption scheme at Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras. Prosecutors say they have “ample proof” that the treasurer knowingly accepted bribes from contractors seeking business from Petrobras. Former Petrobras executives have said he received some $200 million in kickbacks.
Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan author best-known for his 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America, which inspired a generation of scholars, social activists, and revolutionaries, died at age 74 today in Montevideo. He was admitted to hospital on April 10, after being sick with lung cancer for several months.
