Jenni Avins

The US Supreme Court will hear testimony today in the case that pits Abercrombie & Fitch, ailing retailer of rumpled sweatshirts and spaghetti-strapped dresses, against the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Samantha Elauf. Elauf was rejected for a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch store after wearing��her hijab to an interview in 2008, when she was 17 years old.

Step (further) aside, Left Shark. London Fashion Week has brought us the greatest development in pop culture’s shark obsession—cooler than Shark Week, friendlier than Rihanna in a shark’s mouth, and sexier than Sharknado. 

For the past week, Quartz’s new fashion reporter Marc Bain and I have been attending shows at New York Fashion Week, both virtually and in real life. While we have seen many interesting clothes, some of our greatest discoveries have had little to do with fashion at all—at least on the face of it.

On a frigid afternoon smack in the middle of New York Fashion Week, I climbed three sets of rickety wooden stairs to where the label Eckhaus Latta would be presenting its fall/winter 2015 collection.

Even in the fall/winter collections at New York Fashion Week, many runway looks still expose a good deal of skin—seriously high-slit skirts, diving necklines, or tops cropped at the ribcage. But on Feb. 13, Fatema Fardan, who has been called the first Emirati designer to show at New York Fashion Week, showed looks that were a little more covered up.

Hood by Air, one of the hottest labels on the New York Fashion Week calendar, showed its collection yesterday at 23 Wall Street (also known as the most important building in US financial history). Hood by Air is known for challenging conventions and boundaries—are its products for rappers or skaters? Men or women? Athletes or punks?—and the accessories at today’s show certainly delivered.

Seoul-based fashion label Kye may be best known at home for its K-pop connections, but on Feb. 12 at New York Fashion Week, designer Kathleen Kye showed she’s ready to go global.

The death of David Carr—most recently the media columnist for The New York Times, but also so much more—has not yet sunk in. I know I’m one of countless young journalists with their own David Carr story.

Kanye West presented the new collection of sneakers and clothing he made with Adidas along with a new song today at New York Fashion Week. The crowd included his wife Kim Kardashian and daughter North West along with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, fashion designer Alexander Wang, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and many other notable artists and fashion editors. Obviously aware of the glaring spotlight he invited and the inevitable judgment awaiting his collection—which included nude body-stockings, camouflage jackets, and holey sweaters, along with his long-awaited Yeezy Boosts—West delivered a message, documented by GQ, about creating art when you fear being judged.

New York Fashion Week had not officially started, but it wasn’t too soon for a party. Photographers crushed around marginally famous people inside a Meatpacking District studio Feb. 10, where women with clipboards checked guests’ names before allowing them to ascend a ramp where a laser-like light show streamed across the walls.

Inditex, the parent company of Zara and Massimo Dutti, told the Guardian that it will stop selling products made from angora—the wool spun from the under-hairs of angora rabbits that’s often knit into fuzzy sweaters and accessories. The material got a lot of attention in 2013 after the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) released graphic videos of screaming rabbits having their hair ripped out.

Regardless of your gender, if you live in the world, you may have noticed that men everywhere have been wearing clothes. Increasingly, these clothes are not mere jeans and flannels; these clothes are fashion. It’s menswear that says, I do not fear a hanky square or man bag; I own more than two pairs of shoes; I picked out these pants myself.

In its battle to take a shred of market share—and design swagger—from Nike, Adidas may have no greater ally than the rapper Kanye West.

The Moscow library known as INION—the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences—went up in flames on the evening of Jan. 29.

Of the many, many man bags that marched the runways at recent menswear fashion weeks in London, Milan, and Paris, the whale sighting at Thom Browne may have been the best. What appeared to be a luxe, black leather bowling bag from the front, tapered down to a tail with two padded flukes. A gold zipper across the front made its mouth.

Yesterday, Dior designer Raf Simons sent his haute couture collection for spring 2015 down the runway in Paris. The Belgian designer has won the affection of customers and approval of critics, deftly combining classic couture materials and silhouettes with a fresh, modern sensibility and eye-opening color palettes.

The fashion icon Narendra Modi, who is also India’s prime minister, took his personal flair to new levels during Barack Obama’s visit to India over the weekend.

Scads of the world’s most powerful people are now gathered in two small mountain towns: Park City, Utah and Davos, Switzerland. Through Feb.1, Park City hosts the Sundance Film Festival, where hopeful directors, glamorous actors, and powerful producers will attend movies, speaker panels, and parties. They’ll make deals, network with industry cohorts, and maybe even ski. At the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, world leaders and business titans are doing much of the same—minus the movies.

This post has been corrected.

The White House set the table for President Obama’s sixth State of the Union address on Tuesday with a solid, well-timed tweet:

Blurred gender lines are nothing new on edgier fashion runways. But earlier this week at Gucci’s menswear show—a catwalk usually relegated to strong-shouldered suiting and square-jawed male models—androgynous looks took center stage.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics just released a report showing that clothing got 2% cheaper on average over the last year in the US. Underwear, sweaters, jewelry, and watches have all gone down in price. But it will probably surprise no American who has recently shopped for new boots, loafers, or heels to learn that one category has gotten more expensive: shoes.

Even remote followers of fashion will have noticed a proliferation of models and actresses wrapped in a certain Burberry poncho this autumn. In color-blocked burgundy, camel, and black, the wool and cashmere toppers are generally paired with slim jeans and dark sunglasses, and personalized with the wearer’s initials: SJP for Sarah Jessica Parker, and so on.

Tiffany released a holiday sales report yesterday that sent the company’s shares down 14%.