Optimism chic – the look of 2017

Most Januarys are broadly similar. The lunchtime wait in line at M&S to exchange that dodgy Christmas gift cardigan, the treadmills jammed with runners trying to remember how to work the controls, the Dry January martyrs making a massive song and dance about every Diet Coke in the pub.

But this particular January feels tangibly different. Seldom has a new year begun with a zeitgeist united in such bloody-minded optimism. The social media mood on New Year’s Day was a curious mix of blitz spirit (“We can do this!”) and VE Day demob-fever (“We did it!”). The afterburn of 2016 is being felt in our collective determination to bring a better year into being through sheer force of will. Last year had more than its fair share of obscure buzzwords – from Kondo to post-truth to hygge – but the first of this year is one that everyone can rally around. Optimism is so hot right now.

This is big picture stuff, but style is part of it, because on an individual level even big picture stuff gets expressed in small ways. Profound statements are posted on Instagram, and liked by your immediate family. And what you wear to face 2017 is a statement, too. In Susie Boyt’s book My Judy Garland Life, she writes that one of the lessons she learned from her heroine is that “Glamour is a moral stance.” Dressing to cheer and brighten the world in 2017 – whether by red lipstick or a Choose Life T-shirt – is a generous act. And so it is that the look of 2017 has a different slant to what went before. More cheerful, more colourful, more outward looking. With the benefit of hindsight, the athleisure trend that dominated the first half of 2016 seems to signify not simply the wholesome, healthsome vibe it represented at the time, but something about self-obsession and a brazenness about celebrating the shallows of humanity, which played out on a meta scale later in the year.

Fashion stakes high in the birdcage, the best and worst dressed from the big stars

A LIGHT breeze and reggae strains welcomed punters and VRC guests to the Birdcage at Flemington Racecourse for Melbourne Cup.

               
The biggest star in the Birdcage for the morning was Melbourne Cup darling Michelle Payne, dressed in pale pink — with wings — every inch the likeness of the Melbourne Cup guardian angel.
             
With no mount for the race that made her name a year ago, Payne was in high demand in the sponsored marquees of the Birdcage with only betting behemoth Tabcorp successfully enticing her in during the morning.

Nearby Race sponsor Emirates were awaiting the arrival of actor Elsa Pataky, wife of Chris Hemsworth, who on Friday wrapped production on Thor on the Gold Coast. Hemsworth was no accompanying his wife, a horse lover.

Selena Gomez boosts Aussie fashion industry

SELENA Gomez has given love to Aussie fashion this week, putting our labels on the global stage as she continues her Revival tour.

With more than 94 million Instagram followers, the US singer can sell out clothing items the moment she steps out in public, and local brands AM Eyewear and Dion Lee are already feeling the effects of her worldwide influence.

Since the 24-year-old stepped out in a pair of his chico sunglasses, AM Eyewear founder Kumar Ponnusamy said he had been inundated with requests from fans wanting to buy the same style.

“She is one of the world’s most influential celebrities when it comes to social media, so it’s great she’s chosen to support Australian labels like Dion Lee and AM Eyewear during her tour,” he said.

Gomez, who is touring the country, chose a custom-made Dion Lee white corset and sheer skirt as part of her onstage performance outfits.

“There were pieces from our resort 2017 collection that Selena was particularly drawn to, which I then adapted into a design that had the silhouette and movement to work on stage,” Lee told Vogue Australia.

The former Disney star has kept her off-duty ensembles fairly simple during her visit, favouring all-black looks or classic denim pieces with statement sunglasses.

I Wore Only Slow & Recycled Fashion For One Week

And full disclosure: I don't own slow fashion shoes or lingerie yet, but thought it would defeat the purpose of this article to buy things I don't yet need. When they wear out, though, I certainly intend to make responsible, informed purchases. Transitioning to a sustainable slow and recycled fashion wardrobe doesn't have to happen overnight. It's all about taking it one purchase, swap, and dive at time.

Before I show you how I pulled this off for a week, I want to break down the terms fast fashion, slow fashion, and recycled fashion. According to Elizabeth L. Cline, fast fashion is "consumer products based on rapid changes in fashion that are engineered by corporations" at great cost to the environment and human rights. Zady founders Soraya Darabi and Maxine Bédat break down slow fashion as "a complete approach to retail that respects the environment, human capital, [and] the longevity of a product." Lastly, recycled fashion falls under the slow fashion concept in a different way.

Fashion, Finance And Coco Chanel

It would be easy to think that with all the crises in the world today – economic stagnation, wars with ISIS, refugees from Syria to name three – that there’d be some diminished enthusiasm over the just-ended Fashion Week in Paris. But you’d be wrong on two counts.

First, there’s the French attitude towards fashion and beauty, succinctly put by Gertrude Stein in her seminal work, Paris France, published on the eve of World War 2, when she resided here with such other artistic ex-pats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Note: the punctuation below is famously Stein’s)…

Leading Export

And so it is interesting to note that the person whose shows are the most coveted, whose fashion leadership is alive and well today is someone who has been dead since January 10, 1971: Coco Chanel. Not to disparage 77-year-old Karl Lagerfeld whose helmsmanship rescued the line from becoming moribund when he took over the reins in 1983; but it was Chanel who led the revolution and set the groundwork for the modern woman. She did it by creating the “look” for her own life…and it is a life worth examining.

Men’s Fashion Is Headed for a Gender-Bending Moment Unseen Since the ’70s

In January, Gucci’s menswear runway collection was an eye-opener. It wasn’t because the brand had just fired its nearly decadelong creative director Frida Giannini in December, or even because new designer Alessandro Michele had pulled the clothing together in less than a week in his new role.
It was because the men on the runway looked ... like women.

In fact, some of them were women—an increasing trend in menswear shows. Models of both genders—waifish male models and boyish female models alike—were wearing silhouettes, fabrications, and items of clothing that traditionally appear in womenswear collections. Michele’s deliberately ambiguous outfits featured massive pussycat bow blouses, shrunken jackets, and low-slung, wide-leg trousers—on willowy models with matching soft features and lengthy, undone hair.

And just like that, this change in creative direction became symbolic of an industrywide trend—and Michele the movement’s unofficial leader. A shift toward androgyny has been building over the past two years, and with Gucci’s new experimental take, it has hit its stride. (It's worth noting that the recently slumping Gucci just reported its first sales growth in two years, a 4.6 percent increase for the second quarter of 2015—up from a 7.9 percent decrease in the first quarter.)

Gender-bending is nothing new in fashion or pop culture. But in large-scale, high-end fashion, the theme has not been conveyed as loudly or as frequently since, well, a young Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan toyed with feminized looks in the late 1960s. But today, thanks to a troupe of contemporary designers—such as Rick Owens and J.W. Anderson—this theme of gender-neutral dress has been reimagined.

American Androgyny

“The concept of androgyny comes up from time to time in fashion,” says Nancy Deihl, director of the costume studies MA program at New York University. “In modern fashion history, two of the most notable examples are in the 1920s and in the late 1960s into the 1970s.”

Deihl notes that both were periods of social upheaval, which reflected an empowered youth culture.


“The post-World War I generation and the 'baby boom' that created the young population of the 1960s represent times when young people had a lot of economic and cultural influence,” says Diehl. Hello, millennials.

Festival Fashion Theme Returns

One of the special features of the 2015 Emancipation and Independence celebrations is the return of the Festival Fashion Theme. This was
                                                 

unveiled in an exciting and colourful fashion show at the launch of activities for Emancipation and Independence celebrations held recently at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel. The Fashion Theme for the 2015 Festival season is 'Bandana wid Dem Denim ... Ketch the Fashion Riddim'. Local designers had the opportunity to showcase pieces that could be worn by male and female adults, as well as children.

Merchants are encouraged to stock up on bandana and denim material as members of the public are encouraged to wear the designs of the fashion theme. Dressmakers and designers are also encouraged to design and showcase their creativity utilising the fashion theme and have their pieces on sale.

Members of the public are also encouraged to adorn themselves using the fashion theme. There will be a special fashion show during the Emancipation and Independence celebrations entitled Fashion Greets Music Festival. This will be held on Monday, August 3 at 8 p.m. at the Independence Village, Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Kingston 10.

Fashion Greets Music Festival is a musically infused fashion show that will match the fashion of the time with the corresponding musical era and will feature various well-known Jamaican personalities and performances by some of the country's top musical acts.

'Criminal'-The Fashion Video Hit London

When Britney Spears hit London to shoot her "Criminal" video, she caused quite a stir. The singer immediately was criticized by local officials for her use of a gun in the sexy, crime-fantasy clip. Spears addressed the issue, shrugging off the controversy, and this week, fans finally got to see what all the fuss was about when the steamy clip dropped.

 MTV News spoke to the video's director, Chris Marrs Piliero, who said he was surprised the video's gunplay became such a big deal.
"Holding the gun became a controversial thing 'cause we filmed it in London, and they don't have a lot of gun use out there," he explained. "That doesn't mean that there's no gun use, so I did find it really interesting. For me, the thing is, it blew me away that members of [the British] Parliament were speaking about this. One, because it's a music video, and two, because don't you guys have television shows out there that show crime?
"It's really strange to me," he continued, adding just what bothered him most about the controversy: "I don't understand why pop stars are put on such a high pedestal over other celebrities. Why do members of Parliament feel that they need to scrutinize her for having a gun, and 'She's in the public,' and 'She should know better,' and 'She's a role model,' but what about every other celebrity out there? What about every other actor? That's very strange to me. I was really surprised at how much the gun use was scrutinized."
Plus, Piliero said it makes sense that the couple, played by Britney and her real-life boyfriend, Jason Trawick, are using guns. "He's a professional criminal, so it makes sense he has a gun," the director said. "We shouldn't censor ourselves."