Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz

The rise of modest, androgynous, and ugly fashion aesthetics have all contributed to a marked absence of overtly sexy clothes on the world’s fashion runways this year. It’s also, of course, the #MeToo era, a time when designers are wary of appearing exploitative, and eager to show they are treating women with dignity and respect. Dior, Valentino, and Gucci largely downplayed sex appeal at Paris fashion week, instead favoring sensitive, women-centric designs or avant-garde, gender-bending looks.

Microsoft’s font library just got a high fashion makeover, courtesy of the luxury label and notorious maker of ugly things, Balenciaga. Creative director Demna Gvasalia debuted a collection of dresses during the Kering-owned brand’s SS19 fashion show, two of which were fully covered in the san serif fonts of your nightmares, from Impact to Garamond to, yes, Comic Sans.

Have you been struggling to crack the code of internet immortality?

Representation in J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter universe is, to put it mildly, piss-poor. While very few characters in the series have their race explicitly specified, whiteness is the assumed baseline unless stated otherwise.

As fashion month comes to a close, plenty of distinct trends were spotted on both the streets and the runway. There’s no doubt that in the next year we’ll be seeing animal print (lots of it), bucket hats (some), and chunky, ugly dad sneakers (probably until the end of time).

If you happen to be in the market for a diamond ring you’ll know that a 1-carat stone can go for anywhere between $2,500 to $19,000, give or take a couple grand. But starting tomorrow (Sept. 27), you’ll be able to get one for $800, and you can even snag it in a rare pink or blue flavor.

Step aside, sexy nurses and nuns, cutesy kittens and mice, scary zombies and ghouls. This year’s most-searched Halloween costumes are a departure from the backward or the basic. Instead, topping the list are feminist icons, Wakandan warriors, and a legendary athlete. There’s even a tropical bird.

If the wellness industry were a pyramid, clean eating would be at its foundation. Stacked on top of that would be activities like yoga and meditation, and on top of that nutritional accouterments like fish oil supplements, adaptogens, and a whole bunch of collagen. Skin potions that promise to fight aging would come next, and at the very top of the pyramid would be the truly weird stuff like hydration drips and yoni eggs.

The art world has a rather well-deserved reputation for being stuffy, boring, and inaccessible: Auction houses are places for the rich and famous to rub shoulders, while the wealthy dilettante’s useless art history degree is a well-worn punchline in academia. Meanwhile, deep-seated structural sexism, Western-centricism, and racism in the art market prevail.

Luxury online fashion retailer Farfetch (FTCH) made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange today (Sept. 21) and saw shares jump over 50% in the first hours of trading. The London-based tech unicorn hit a high of $30.60, well above its initial offering of $20 (paywall), which topped its expected range of $17 to $19 per share. Trading closed at $28.45, giving the company a market cap of over $8 billion (paywall).

This month North Korea opened its recently remodeled Pyongyang Cosmetics Factory to foreign media. Yesterday the Global Times, a Chinese state-run media outlet, published a report based on its tour of the facilities.

Gucci’s new Instagram account, Gucci Beauty (@guccibeauty), isn’t your typical beauty account, full of lipstick swatches and influencer ads. Instead, the fashion brand’s feed looks more like a museum-grade art page.

Yellow is having a moment. If you read the fashion media or have walked past an H&M this year, you may have noticed the color popping up more often than usual. From the rich saffron of Amal Clooney’s royal wedding attire to the ubiquitous neon tulle at New York’s fashion week, yellow has proved itself a more versatile and resilient color than ever.

The skincare brand Origins is making its cannabinoid beauty debut this week with “Hello, Calm,” a face mask created in collaboration with Sephora that launches online tomorrow (Sept. 18) and in the beauty giant’s stores on Oct. 5.

For those of us who have a fraught relationship with swimwear, the giant t-shirt is a cherished summertime essential, a beach- or pool-side cover-all to lounge or even swim in.

The Billboard Hot 100 is the US music industry’s most influential chart. Since 1958, it’s been used to rank the most popular songs in the country, across all genres. That’s why it was a big deal when, on July 9, Billboard announced that Drake had claimed seven simultaneous slots in the Hot 100’s top 10 songs, beating a five-song record previously held by The Beatles.

I’m not an adventurous dresser: My wardrobe is a wash of basics from Uniqlo and Zara, and the only pattern I wear is a Breton stripe, which is so boring many count it as a neutral.

Last week, the news that the perfume brand Pinrose planned to launch a “Starter Witch Kit” in Sephora this October caused a backlash among practitioners of witchcraft and others. The nine-piece set was to retail for $42, and include an array of witch-related items, including tarot cards, sage, and a rose quartz crystal (paywall).

For its next trick, Instagram may be planning to launch a standalone app specifically for shopping.

Goop’s vaginal eggs are at the center of a $145,000 civil settlement made by the company yesterday (Sept. 4) following a lawsuit brought by the California Food, Drug, and Medical Device Task Force.

French fashion house Balmain recently announced three “beautiful diverse” additions to its slate of influencer-cum-models it calls its “Balmain Army.” The “models” are virtual avatars.

More than 100 pink Cadillacs filled the streets outside of Greater Grace Temple in Detroit today (Aug. 31) to pay tribute to the Queen of Soul on the day of her funeral. The gesture was inspired by Franklin’s iconic hit “Freeway of Love,” in which she sings about cruising in a pink Cadillac:

In some good news for area witches, Sephora will soon emerge as a mainstream purveyor of witchy accouterments. Representatives for the cosmetics giant confirmed a report in the Glossy that the trendy perfume brand Pinrose will launch a “Starter Witch Kit” in stores and online on Oct. 9, in plenty of time for Halloween.

American Eagle Outfitters piqued analyst interest yesterday (Aug. 29) when it announced an ambitious plan to open as many as 80 physical stores for its sub-brand, Aerie, over the next three years. On the company’s second-quarter earnings call, chief executive Jay Schottenstein called Aerie “the key growth engine within [American Eagle’s] strategic plan”.