Holiday travelers, you don’t want to be that person holding up the line of stressed passengers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening. You also don’t want to get your container of Magnolia Bakery banana pudding confiscated because, apparently, in spite of its deliciously thick texture, it’s a liquid. (Yes—this happened to me.)
Women’s knitting circles have a long history beyond our grandmothers’ favorite pastime, but men’s roles in knitting have had a long history, too. In the Middle Ages, there were knitting guilds, essentially labor unions, which prohibited women from joining. When the knitting machine was invented in the 16th century, hand knitting by both men and women declined.
When the Apple Watch was unveiled in September 2014, the general consensus among the fashion conscious and tech savvy (and those who are both) was that it was ugly and overpriced—even if you added precious metals and a leather Hermes strap. “18-karat gold hardware in and of itself does not make for a sound investment (unless you were planning on smelting it down),” wrote an editor at Complex. But Apple played the style and aesthetics long game. Now, you’re seeing watches designed to look like a smartwatch—even if they don’t do anything more smarter than simply tell time.
The future of brick-and-mortar bookstores has been in peril for at least a decade. But whether you’re actually shopping for a book or not, you might actually find yourself wandering into a bookstore by accident. Because fashion brands, from French icon Sonia Rykiel to New York City-based Warby Parker, are curating books not as objects to read but as objects of décor.
What were you doing at 10pm EST last night? If you have an iPhone (sorry, no Android users yet), there is a good chance that you were playing HQ Trivia, the interactive live-streamed quiz app that has gone viral because you can win real money. Sessions are weekdays at 3pm EST and everyday at 9pm EST, FYI.
You have to suspend a lot of disbelief when you watch the first film of the Jurassic World trilogy (2015), a reboot of the classic 1990s Jurassic Park series. No, I’m not talking about the “science” of resurrecting dinosaurs from DNA mined from fossils. I’m not talking about the lack of evacuation procedures at the Jurassic World theme park. I’m talking about Bryce Dallas Howard’s shoes.
Just yesterday, the Washington Post made a pronouncement: a beverage called “cheese tea,” originated from Taiwan, is the “latest wait-in-line, Instagram-your-purchase status food.” Cheese tea sounds gross, but it’s not melted brie with Lipton. It’s a sweet tea topped with a foamy, mousse-like dairy product that is usually cream cheese blended with condensed milk. It’s delicious—and I know that because, in 2016, my teenage sister took me to Cupertino’s Happy Lemon, a pioneer chain brand of the cheese tea since 2006. Asian American teenagers in Silicon Valley are actually the country’s foremost experts on the latest Instagrammable drinks.
For two years and counting, I have been the sort of smug person who does not use Facebook. I didn’t deactivate my account because I hated Facebook—I barred myself from access because I loved it too much. I scrolled down my newsfeed during parties, perused profiles of acquaintances instead of looking at my surroundings, and anxiously waited for friends to “react” to my status updates. Once I wiped Facebook from my life, I thought friends would forget me, knowing that Facebook was so fundamental to our daily lives.
Taylor Swift is taking over the world. The American pop star is the highest paid woman in music. She has over 100 million followers on Instagram and is a meme many times over. Her poetry was recently published in Vogue. And this week she graces the cover of Time as part of the group of “Silence Breakers” that won the magazine’s Person of Year award for speaking out about sexual harassment and abuse.
Hold onto your fair-trade wool beanies: the most hipster city in the nation is not Portland, Oregon—according to moving company MoveHub, at least, which recently came out with the US Hipster Index. Stumptown isn’t even top 10.
Once upon a time, I had an editor who, when conducting interviews with female actresses and models, would ask them what they ate—even if the story was about a new movie project, a new jewelry collection, or a new memoir. My editor, who has publicly admitted to having body and food issues, would ignore the on-topic memos I had prepared in order to talk about what she personally wanted to know: how these beautiful, trim women stayed so beautiful and trim.
2018 is looking good—at least on the January cover of American Elle, which was just released yesterday. The cover star, shot by Argentinian photographer Paola Kudacki, is actress Zoë Kravitz, who was the only woman of color with a significant role in the critically acclaimed HBO miniseries, Big Little Lies. Equally key, the issue’s original cover wasn’t shot by a female photographer—but lensed by Terry Richardson, who has been banned by global media giants like Condé Nast and Hearst Magazines (Elle’s parent company) for allegations of sexual abusing his models. Richardson strongly denies the charges, but they’ve been corroborated by numerous models at different points in their career.
This past weekend, I saw announcements like this all over my friends’ Instagram stories:
When my parents were growing up during the Cultural Revolution of China in the 1970s, they were forbidden from doing anything considered “western” bourgeoisie or traditionally Chinese. Mao Zedong’s revolution wanted to destroy the Four Olds: Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas. And indeed, many precious cultural institutions were destroyed and forgotten.
Whether you’ve had a year like Meghan Markle or a year like Hillary Clinton, it’s December, so it’s time to show some holiday cheer. Do it for the children, at least.
70-year-young fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, known for the bestselling dress in the world (the wrap dress), definitely would have made Forbes 30 Under 30 if the list had existed 40 years ago. On Wednesday evening she joined Instagram’s fashion doyenne Eva Chen at New York City’s The Wing for an intimate chat with 500 women who belonged to the members-only club. And I, a 26-year-old woman, was one of them.
After an entire year of searching across continents and reviewing more than 1,000 auditions, Disney finally announced its choice for the title role of Mulan in its 2019 live-action remake of the 1998 cartoon film: 30-year-old Liu Yifei, aka Crystal Liu. The first reaction on Twitter was a sigh of relief that Disney would wisely avoid whitewashing the film by choosing a half-Asian actress. Even better: Disney was also embracing the powerhouse of Chinese cinema by choosing an actress who is as big in Asian entertainment as Harry Potter/Beauty and the Beast-vet Emma Watson is in Western entertainment. Casting Yifei is also a savvy move to capture Chinese mainland audiences who already know her as a household name, since the Chinese box office is expected to become the largest in the world by 2020.
“This Is Just To Say,” a poem that is read in every American high school English class, is pretty close to perfect as an evocation of fleeting sensual pleasure:
I waited with bated breath after Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s engagement announcement on Monday (can you believe it was only Monday?). No, not to see Markle’s dress for the photo op. (It was by P.A.R.O.S.H.) Not to find out where the wedding will be held. (In St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.) Not even to learn, exactly, how they got engaged or met in the first place. (Over roasted chicken, and through a blind date, if you can believe both their lucky stars.) I, a beauty writer, was perversely looking forward to the first beauty product pitch pegged to Markle.
Ina Garten, as always, was onto something when she reinvigorated the notion of Engagement Roast Chicken—a roasted chicken is the perfect home cooked meal for romance. When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry got engaged in Nottingham Cottage, the prince’s no-more bachelor pad in Kensington Palace, they happened to be having a “cozy night” roasting a chicken.
The biggest viral story from the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, filmed in Shanghai on Nov. 20, was the runway tumble—and graceful smiling recovery—of a Chinese model, Xi Mengyao, also known as Ming Xi.
British supermodel Naomi Campbell will never become irrelevant. If she were meant to fade into obscurity like most models after a few decades in business, it would have happened long ago.
To understand modern-day, millennial-endorsed feminism, you have to understand “shine theory.” The idea is rooted in women befriending each other, a kind of networking-with-a-purpose. When they shine, the theory goes, you shine, too. It advises women to make friends with powerful or influential women who can lift you up as they rise (much as men have always done).
First of all, let me say that there is nothing wrong with having oily skin. As a matter of fact, my dermatologist has told me not to worry when I complained about my face having enough grease to fry an egg. Apparently, it’s a natural preservative, and people with oil-prone skin are likely to ward off wrinkles a little bit longer.
