The Final Countdown: Style File’s Top Stories of 2013

The fashion biz has had quite a year. 2013 was jam-packed with major designer shakeups, groundbreaking ad campaigns, celebrity collaborations, and pop star performance wardrobes filled with custom-made designer duds. In the final days leading up to 2014, we’re counting down Style File’s most popular twenty stories of the annum. So sit back, relax, and relive 2013′s unforgettable moments. Let’s kick things off with numbers twenty through sixteen, below.

20. Rihanna and River Island Take London Fashion Week

Rihanna stirred up some anarchy in the UK when she and Adam Selman debuted their risqué River Island collection at London fashion week in February. Style had a front row seat the the star’s design debut.

19. Maison Kitsuné’s Retro Pop Experience

Gildas Loaëc and Masaya Kuroki, the talents behind cult fashion brand-cum-record-label Maison Kitsuné, were Pitti W’s Fall ’13 guest designers. And in keeping with their quirky, multidisciplinary roots, the pair put on a riotous musical fashion presentation. Style was on the scene to document their sixties-themed extravaganza.

best prom dresses

18. Dior Walks the Red Square

Last July, for the second time in history, Dior staged a show in Moscow’s Red Square. As you can imagine, the festivities, which were hosted inside a purpose-built mirrored pavilion, were brimming with glitz and glamour—albeit of Dior’s sleek and tasteful variety. Designer and Style Map contributor Vika Gazinskaya took us inside the memorable affair.

17. Playboy‘s Artist Pals are Rethinking Sexy—But is it Porn or Art?

Playboy has had a big year, what with Kate Moss covering its sixtieth anniversary issue and Richard Phillips’ controversial Playboy Marfa installation. Back in May, the magazine’s new director of special projects, curator Neville Wakefield, asked artists Aaron Young, Malerie Marder, and Alex Israel to create works featuring Playmate of the Year, Raquel Pomplun. So we asked the question—were the results porn, or art?

16. Bike Like Baba

In 2013, just six years after Paris inaugurated its shared vélo progam, New York finally caught up and launched its ever-popular Citi Bikes. But traffic-inducing tourists aren’t the only ones using the vehicles—the bicycles were a popular mode of transport at New York fashion week. During the Spring ’14 shows, we talked to eccentric stylist and cyclist extraordinaire, Catherine Baba, about the dos and don’ts of biking about town.

kissydress one shoulder bridesmaid dresses

Pitti Weighs In on the Overcrowded Menswear Calendar

“We’ve offered so many olive branches,” Dylan Jones, the editor in chief of British GQ, and chairman of the London Collections: Men, told WWD last week. “[The Italian organizers] seem to be intransigent and don’t appear to be particularly interested in working with London, so we’re just going to go ahead.” His statement was in response to an ongoing scheduling conflict that the newly established London menswear shows, which will run from January 6 through 8, have with Florence’s long-standing menswear fair, Pitti Immagine Uomo, whose eighty-fifth installment is set for January 7 through 10. In an interview with Style today, however, Pitti CEO Raffaello Napoleone and director of special events and projects Lapo Cianchi argue that they’ve been more than cooperative. “We have had very good conversations with [British Fashion Council chairman] Caroline Rush,” offered Napoleone. “And we are totally open to finding a balance and solution to this situation.”

The concern on both parties’ ends is that, due to the current two-day overlap, editors and buyers will have to choose one fair over the other, and will miss key events in either city. Burberry, for instance, will present its Fall ’14 menswear lineup at 2 p.m. in London on January 7. Meanwhile, Diesel Black Gold—Pitti 85′s guest brand—is meant to hold its Fall ’14 show in Florence later that evening. Pitti’s (rather opulent) answer this time around is to charter a plane and fly about fifty editors to Florence immediately following the Burberry show.

prom dresses sale | red carpet dresses

The problem ends up involving all four major menswear cities: If Pitti were pushed back to accommodate London, Milan and Paris would have to alter their calendars as well. According to Napoleone, the Pitti team proposed a fix, to which Milan and Paris are reportedly not opposed: London would always run from January 6 through 8, Pitti would begin on the 8th, Milan on the 12th, and so on. “We’d have to show on the weekend, which is not exactly what we feel would be best for our clients or exhibitors,” expressed Napoleone, noting that while there would still be a one-day overlap, it was at least an improvement. “But as the French say, faute de mieux—if there are no other solutions, you have to accept it. The last time I was in London with Dylan and Caroline, I left them this very fair proposal, and we didn’t receive any answer.” As for why Pitti didn’t just concede to start on January 8 this season, Napoleone said, “The seventh was decided with Milan and Paris two years ago, before the new London fashion week had started.”

Napoleone insists that he has “no idea” what inspired Jones’ comment. “Dylan Jones is a supporter of Pitti. He always attends,” said Cianchi. “The real olive branch in this story is that every city is open to renouncing something. We are completely open,” Napoleone added.

Drink, eat and be green

It's so easy to be wasteful over the festive season. From catering for 12 people when there are only six of you for Christmas dinner, to leaving unnecessary lights on and running water when you really don't need to, we're all guilt of a little bit of wastefulness over the season.

Here's how you can have a genuinely eco-friendly Christmas and ensure that those resources you use aren't spent in vein.

Christmas cards

Instead of sending the original holiday cards, made of paper, send e-cards instead.

If you're determined to send out real Christmas cards, make sure you buy cards printed on recycled paper.

If you've got time, recycle old Christmas cards by using the lovely picture on the front and sticking it to recycled paper for that personal and homemade touch.

Shopping

Plan your shopping trips carefully to ensure that you don't have to go backwards and forwards to the shops.

Don't overcater. Get a rough idea of whose coming to dinner and cater for that many people plus two. That should do it and it should ensure that you'll have one or two leftovers for those who get peckish later on.

Take your own carry bags and avoid asking for plastic bags where you can.

Decline unnecessary receipts print outs if you don't need them for gifts. Especially if you bank online and can see what you've purchased that way.

The tree

In South Africa most people go for the artificial tree as you can use it over a long period of time, yet a real, indigenous tree could also be used and replanted after the festive season.

mermaid prom dresses | long prom dresses uk

A twist in the traditional tree. Get hold of a gorgeous indigenous tree such as an acacia, a white stinkwood or a delicate leopard tree for an homegrown South African take on Christmas.

Avoid buying more of those plastic Christmas tree ornaments. Use your old ornaments from last year and focus on natural material ornaments instead.

Make edible ornaments by baking Christmas cookies, punching holes in them when they're still dough and then stringing ribbon and hanging them on the tree. It will look gorgeous, not to mention delicious.

Gifts

Don't wrap big gifts, using reams and reams of wrapping paper. Instead, get the kids to do a bit of a treasure hunt to find their larger gifts.

Try to recycle gift wrap for next year — waste not, want not!

Buy fewer gifts for everyone and look for products that clearly state their allegiance to organisations that look after the environment.

You could also agree to buy one meaningful gift for each person instead of tons of stuff that they might not necessarily use. Get everyone to write down a list of things they'd really like and then you can all pitch in to buy them that gift.

Agree to donate to each other's chosen charity as a gift to each other. There's nothing like making a difference in other people's lives as the perfect Christmas gift to yourself.

Food

Make sure you shop for local ingredients as much as you possibly can. You can get great local foods at markets. Alternatively, always check the packaging to see whether or not the product is local.

Reduce your meat intake. It's a tough one over Christmas, but look for alternatives to those meaty snacks and go for tapas. Check out our range of tapas and dips here.

Recycle all those glass and plastic bottles. Put two bins just outside your kitchen door, or in view of your guests and mark them 'glass' and 'plastic'. Then encourage everyone to get rid of these two waste products here. You can take these along to your local rubbish dump where there should be tips for the various materials. Alternatively, visit this page to find out where you can recycle.

This is the perfect time to start your compost heap or your worm farm as there will be plenty of biodegradable waste to get it started.

Kim Kardashian Is Single White Female-ing Elizabeth Taylor

Kim Kardashian claims Oscar-winner and renowned beauty Elizabeth Taylor as her personal idol, and in a new Instagram selfie posted earlier this morning, Kim proves she and the star do have a few things in common.

Kardashian appears to have a famous 1991 picture of Elizabeth Taylor by Herb Rits hanging in her home. In the photo, Elizabeth Taylor’s face is visible only from the eyes up, but even with her hair wrapped up in a towel, Taylor is instantly recognizable just from her famous, heavily made-up violet eyes and a diamond ring that is the size of a golf ball.

For her selfie version, Kardashian copied the picture and applied a black and white filter. Comparing oneself to Elizabeth Taylor is pretty ballsy, considering that Taylor was one of the most beautiful women in the world, but the photo does highlight some notable similarities between Kim Kardashian and Elizabeth Taylor.

purple bridesmaid dresses

For starters, there is the ring. Elizabeth Taylor had a love of very high-end jewelry, and her 33.1-carat engagement ring from Richard Burton is estimated to be the single most expensive engagement ring in the world. Kim Kardashian’s rock is about the size of a human eyeball.

Then there are the lashes. Elizabeth Taylor had a genetic mutation that gave her two rows of eyelashes. Kim Kardashian’s lashes are equally enormous, though she lives in an age when eyelash extension technology exists.

But while Internet commenters are already making jokes about how they have a lot of marriages between them, Elizabeth Taylor had had five husbands by the time she was Kim Kardashian’s age. Kardashian has had only two, and when she and Kanye tie the not, we actually suspect that one will last. Maybe we’re hopeless romantics, but we believe that the couple that gilds toilets together and self-promotes together is a couple that stays together.

kissyprom navy blue bridesmaid dresses

Why fashion is having a fairytale moment

As we get older our taste becomes more sophisticated but there's no harm in injecting a little magic and nostalgia into our fashion now and then.

This year some of the high street's biggest names have gone all out with fairytale-inspired campaigns that aim to fill us all with festive joy and wonder.

John Lewis went with the concept of a children's story book and is rumoured to have spent a whopping £7million on The Bear And The Hare TV animation.

Also on our screens is the enchanting offering from Marks & Spencer, set in a magical forest and inspired by a trio of classic childhood stories.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley stars as Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy and Little Red Riding Hood alongside David Gandy as the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the powerful Wizard of Oz.

Showcasing everything from chic coats, sparkling dresses and red patent heels to pretty hair bows, it's a fashion dream come true.

kissyprom silver bridesmaid dresses

However, styling based around classic stories didn't start with popular advertising campaigns.

The autumn and winter catwalks saw touches of fantasy-inspired outfits with structured, appliqued gowns at Marchesa, worn with bossy, boxy jackets reminiscent of a wicked queen or magical witch.

If you fancy trying out this trend then just remember to steer clear of anything too fancy-dress.

Instead take your cue from the celebrity world and stars such as actress Claire Danes who was spotted in an eye-catching Red Riding Hood-esque ensemble.

You could copy Helena Bonham Carter's M&S style, add some red glitter heels to your party season outfit or keep things fun and Alice inspired in heart-print tights.

white prom dresses uk

Calvin Klein Collection’s Pre-Fall Menswear

Italo Zucchelli, the creative director of Calvin Klein Collection’s menswear, was unexpectedly enthusiastic about a subject in fashion—at least in men’s fashion—that most prefer to ignore: pre-collections. “It’s kind of new for men,” Zucchelli said. Not long ago, the situation was much the same for womenswear: Pre-collections were commercial lines, meant to bolster store buys (in practice, they often make up to 70 percent, or more, of many retailers’ annual purchases) and distill the themes of the mainline “editorial” collections presented on the runway into more wearable, salable form. But anyone reading over the past few years has seen pre-collections boom, often into runway shows of their own. (See our complete coverage if you disbelieve.)

red carpet dresses

ould the same happen for menswear? Zucchelli, for one, makes such a thing seem possible. (His sales, he reports, are split fifty-fifty between pre-collections and Spring and Fall collections.) “The pre-collections became bigger and bigger,” he said. “Now I’m injecting fashion.” The Pre-Fall 2014 collection, debuting here, makes the point. The airy palette of the Spring ’14 collection, inspired in part by the work of James Turrell, turned darker, but blue remained dominant. Makes sense: Navy is a color no man is afraid to buy. But Zucchelli made good on his promise of more fashion in this traditionally sales-friendly offering. A bonded flannel car coat, easy and approachable, was spliced together with a panel of contrast fabric. “Techy” was Zucchelli’s word for it. That future-leaning, technological bent, which has characterized many of his collections for the label, was evident throughout: In the moire jacquard motif on suits and jackets, the slash details worked into the seams of tailored garments, and, most of all, the printed graphic sweatshirts and tees that the designer said were already attracting significant sales attention. They featured blue-tinted aerial illustrations of one of the world’s techiest cities: Tokyo.

black bridesmaid dresses 2013

Fashion revs up - Biker jackets

The leather jacket stands the test of time as a style perennial. But it’s also a bit of a minefield. After all, “leather jacket” encompasses a multitude of styles and sins. Considering spending your hard-earned cash on a leather trench? Remember The Matrix and back away. Brightly coloured padded leather catching your eye? Watch Thriller and realise the error of your ways. What was questionable on Michael Jackson in 1983 has in no way been rehabilitated for 2013. Clearly, not all leather jackets are created equal.

Perhaps, then, on the surface at least, the jacket that’s the most appealing is the most classic: the black leather biker or motorcycle combo. Google it, and be enticed by the constellation of cinematic stars past and present sporting the louche look with rakish aplomb. Probably the most famous image of all is Marlon Brando astride a Harley, sporting a beyond-classic Schott Perfecto in 1953’s The Wild One. When his character, Johnny Strabler, was asked what he was actually rebelling against, his disdainful reply of “whadda you got?” instantly confirmed both attire and actor as talismans of youthful dissent.

kissyprom one shoulder bridesmaid dresses

There’s a catch. Marlon makes it all look all-too easy. Both he and the Schott are a hard act to follow, regrettably leading many a man down the biker jacket route for all the wrong reasons. Remember this; for mere mortals like ourselves, no amount of revving around on a motorcycle looking mean, moody and sweaty in a black leather cap is going to turn you into a modern-day Marlon. Real life just doesn’t work like that.

Instead, look to labels such as Belstaff or Matchless for a more grown-up take on the leather motorcycle jacket; incredibly versatile, these 21st-century bikers can be dressed up with a shirt and tie, or down with a simple T-shirt and jeans. Still not impressed? Eschew leather entirely and opt for the waxed version from Barbour – think Steve McQueen astride a Triumph bike – which is actually a damn sight easier to pull off.

short celebrity dresses

Related Article:

http://www.kissydress.co.uk/how-to-pick-up-prom-dresses-for-slender-body-shape-girls

Amazing Makeup Tips to Hide Flu Symptoms

Although flu can make your body weaker, there are great makeup tips that will help you hide it and make you restore your complexion's natural glow. Are you curious to find them out?

Makeup for Flu Face: Concealer

Concealer is essential when it comes to makeup for flu face. Just apply a bit on your red nose and no one will notice you've spent all night dealing with flu. Pick a makeup for flu face product that perfectly matches your type of skin and skin tone, and add it to your shopping list.

Makeup Tips for Flu Face: Lip Exfoliation

Sometimes, cold temperatures can also lead to chapped lips, due to constant wind and rain exposure. So, here's one of the best makeup tips for flu face: lip exfoliation. You should take a washcloth and wet it with lukewarm water, and then gently rub your lips to remove dead skin cells. Now you should use another makeup tip for flu face item: chapstick. Apply a coat of this relieving flu product and then add a bit of light color.

prom dresses | celebrity dresses

Makeup Tip to Cover Cold Symptoms: Glossy Blush

Here's another great makeup tip to cover cold symptoms. After you gently wash your dehydrated complexion with an exfoliating cleanser, add a tinted moisturizer and define your makeup with a glossy blush. This lovely product will add a touch of natural color to your cheekbones and will make you glow.

Makeup Tip to Hide Flu Symptoms: Waterproof Mascara

If you want to find out another great makeup tip to hide flu symptoms , you should definitely wear a waterproof mascara. Unlike eyeshadows that can easily wash out, this beauty product will make your eyes look bigger and brighter. Plus, its water resistance makes it a great makeup for flu face product that you can wear both during the day and evening.

Ann Demeulemeester Leaves Her Label

There’s a generation of women who will feel like rising to salute a heroine of fashion integrity today. Ann Demeulemeester, the woman responsible for defining slouchy Belgian cool in the nineties, has written to her friends—in her own beautiful handwriting—to say she’s moving on from the company she founded in 1985. Her very personal sign off says it all about the integrity and human values her fans have admired in Demeulemeester over nearly 30 years. She’s leaving the industry, she writes, as “a happy and fulfilled person.”

As a member of the vastly talented Antwerp Six, who graduated from the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1986 (she was a classmate of Dries Van Noten), Demeulemeester created a highly recognizable fashion uniform for a clan of working women who constitutionally objected to power suits. Her deconstructed suiting, trailing long skirts, and drapey white shirts were functionally elegant and subtly suffused with the indie attitude she continually tested against the principles and poetry of her own muse, Patti Smith.

teal bridesmaid dresses | long bridesmaid dresses

Demeulemeester’s growing band of appreciators became a kind of tribe who saw themselves reflected season after season in the family of models who roamed her Paris runways. Her ever-evolving deconstructed-minimalist wardrobe strode on in its own path, strong enough to transcend and withstand trends—even when fashion veered toward cocktail dresses and bling, Demeulemeester showed her grateful faithful exactly how to ignore it.

That won her an emotional connection with the public, which went further than the aesthetics. As she built her company in her own way, Demeulemeester also became a symbolic leader for her peers in refusing to sacrifice motherhood for her career—at a time when fashion industry employers openly doubted whether women designers could do both. When Demeulemeester and her husband, Patrick Robyn, had their son, Victor, she simply had a connecting corridor built between her home and her workspace so she could see her baby any time he needed her and got on with it. Her son now grown, her fashion career completed, Demeulemeester now leads another rare group of pioneers—fashion designers who have done it on their own terms, and are managing to walk away to a private and happy future. Bravo.

Can a Love of Style and a Strong Voice Make Rapper Angel Haze a Star?

In her new single “Echelon (It’s My Way),” Angel Haze name-drops Helmut Lang along with a few other of her favorite designers, a kind of declaration of the arrival of her triumphant personal style: “Fashion Week I’m out here slaying / Dressed in all the latest.”

“Fashion came with success,” Haze says, now standing in the label’s Meatpacking District showroom. “But I’ve always known what I like—the colors and textures.” To gear up for her debut album Dirty Gold and the performances that will come along with it, Haze has linked up with Helmut Lang designers Michael and Nicole Colovos, who are taking her through the showroom and ask the ultimate Helmut Lang question: “Do you wear layers?”

“I love to wear, like, five layers,” Haze replies, pulling a black-netted shirt off the rack. “This is dope. It needs to be really breathable with all the fast talking I do.” She has a tendency toward ensembles in all-white or all-black, but then, there’s the question of a bright pink dress, an anomaly among the gray-scale clothes hanging around the perimeter of the room. “Do you wear dresses?”

A pause. “I only wear dresses when I don’t want people to recognize me.” A black dress with elongated armholes goes on. “It’s sexy, but tough,” Nicole says. “A little goth-ninja,” Haze agrees. After comparing tattoos and talking about a mutual love of “slouching around in leather,” Haze is hooked. “I’m, like, gushing over you guys!” she says, laughing.

long bridesmaid dresses uk | short bridesmaid dresses uk

Haze was signed last year, and her debut album, Dirty Gold, is due out early 2014. In the meantime, she’s releasing a series of covers and freestyle tracks on SoundCloud, collectively titled 30 Gold. She’s tackled contemporaries’ hits like Jay-Z’s “Tom Ford” and Drake’s “Worst Behavior,” plus Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” and, most notably, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s “Same Love,” her rework of which delves into her own moving personal narrative, weaving in thought-provoking lines from poet Andrea Gibson. Haze’s emotional honesty cut with intelligent ferocity is what makes fans love her. Because I had to switch the narrative it now makes more sense for the Tweet to come in after she looks at the racks (it was in the midst): Just before she finishes looking at the collection in the showroom, her phone buzzes. “Someone just asked me to go to their homecoming dance on Twitter,” she says.

Onstage, it’s like Haze is ten feet tall in neon socks and Givenchy boots, her flow has such a tough energy. Fashionwise, she gravitates toward clothes she can move in. Correction: “Something I can jump around in! I jump on the speakers!”

Finding clothing that makes performance fluid is the priority: “I gain more of my fans from live performances,” Haze says. “Everything I build my tracks on—they see it come out live.” But before Haze goes on her own tour next year, Vogue has an exclusive first listen of her newest 30 Gold cover of One Republic’s “Counting Stars.” Will a love of style, unstoppable flow, and strong singing voice make her a star? Count on it.

Runway to Red Carpet: Fashion’s Award Shows and a Dressed-Up European Tour

This week was highlighted by a whirlwind European press tour for the cast of Hunger Games: Catching Fire, with photo calls and premieres in London, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, and Oslo. Leading lady Jennifer Lawrence donned a bevy of gorgeous gowns to promote the second film of the trilogy. And while she mostly stuck to her red-carpet favorite, Dior (she is the face of the brand, after all), the actress did throw in a sprinkling of Alexander McQueen, Louis Vuitton, and Proenza Schouler. At Tuesday’s Berlin premiere, Lawrence wore a pale blue double-breasted coat-dress with printed guipure panels from Dior’s Resort ’14 range, which was a perfectly chic way to battle dropping temperatures (remember Leelee Sobieski’s black version last week? We sense a trend coming on). Elizabeth Banks also shined on the red carpet, choosing two shimmering Elie Saab Fall ’13 Couture dresses for the Berlin and Oslo premieres.

kissyprom long bridesmaid dresses | kissyprom one shoulder bridesmaid dresses

On Monday, the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards and Glamour‘s Women of the Year Awards brought out a stylish crowd. Lily Collins walked the red carpet at the WOTY Awards in a silk flesh-toned gown with a plunging neckline from the Julien Macdonald Spring ’14 runway, while Lady Gaga paired a pearl-adorned jacket with a cargo-pocketed pencil skirt and tall, pearl-encrusted platform shoes from Thom Browne’s asylum-themed Spring ’14 lineup. At the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Awards, Ciara wore her first Calvin Klein Collection ensemble, stepping out in a tweed wrap vest and cotton twill painter’s pants, with a jacket draped around her shoulders from the Spring ’14 runway. Considering the result, we have a feeling there’s more Calvin in the singer’s future.

The Victoria's Secret catwalk show has nothing to do with fashion

It is the most expensive catwalk show ever staged, but it has almost nothing to do with fashion. They're not really into irony at Victoria's Secret, so the joke gets a little lost in the dazzle of white teeth and diamond-encrusted bras and paparazzi cameras, but it's quite funny, when you think about it.

All the signifiers of a fashion show are in place when Victoria's Secret stages its annual extravaganza. The model line-up always includes high-end Paris fashion week names (Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn have featured in recent years) and the show is styled by Sophia Neophitou, who as stylist and collaborator to Roland Mouret and Antonio Berardi and British Fashion Council ambassador is an undisputed powerhouse of high fashion taste. The 6in high heels are designed for the occasion by Nicholas Kirkwood, the talented young shoe designer who was just snapped up by LVMH.

But there's something missing. Call me old-fashioned, but I sort of think the absence of clothes is a dealbreaker as far as fashion goes. At the Victoria's Secret show, instead of clothes, the models wear underwear and massive fluffy angel wings. I've been a fashion editor for 15 years, I've seen all kinds of crazy accessories anointed a fashion must-have, but massive fluffy angel wings? Nope. Not a catwalk trend. Never.

I know what you're thinking: it's about sex, stupid. Well, here's the thing: I don't see that Victoria's Secret is really about sex, either. The presentation of the Victoria's Secret Angels, to give the catwalk models their faintly creepy official title is look-but-don't-touch in the extreme. Like a very grand ballgown, or a bridal dress with a train, the wings form a kind of exclusion zone, making it physically difficult to get close. Also, even if you did find a woman dressed in an oversized Angel Gabriel costume sexy, which seems a little dubious, you'd have difficulty getting intimately acquainted. The wings Alessandra Ambrosia wore in the 2011 show were gold-plated antique copper decorated with 105,000 Swarovski crystals. They weighed almost 10kg. There is as much neon, crystal, and metallic on the VS runway as there is satin and maribou. The VS catwalk cipher might be look-at-me, but it's hard to argue that it is come-and-get-me. The name Victoria's Secret was chosen, in 1977, to set a mood-music of sobriety and respectability, and that wholesomeness is still there, despite the acres of flesh on show.

one shoulder bridesmaid dresses | short bridesmaid dresses

When you visit the store, you notice how little of the product is sexy in the sense of being designed for sex. Much of the shopfloor is dominated by bras bulked up by gel or foam padding. In these, a woman may send a sexual signal when dressed, but she will need to undress alone. The vast "Pink" sub-brand of pyjamas, sweatshirts and logoed vests sells an aesthetic of the tween sleepover, not booty call. But there is no doubt it works: last year, sales at Victoria's Secret totalled almost £4bn.

The VS brand has very little to do with actual sex, and everything to do with sexiness as a status symbol. The brand has as much to do with women looking at other women, as it does with men looking at women: for every 17-year-old boy ogling the model's arses, there is a 16-year-old girl staring at their abs. VS deliberately emphasises the intense competition amongst models to appear on the catwalk; among the most "liked" posts of the endless Instagram photos of Angels-in-training are those which feature the models in boxing gloves, punching their way to a catwalk turn that could earn them a seven figure paycheque.

The Victoria's Secret show takes the cheerleader tradition, and removes the boring old football game. Sportsmanship is old hat; the 21st century is all about being hot. This is the Superbowl, for those gifted with lovely hair, beautiful bottoms and superhuman endurance for juice fasting. These days you can be a champion – an Angel, a higher being – just by being sexy. That's a trend, for sure. But it's got nothing to do with fashion, so don't blame us.

Related Article:

http://www.kissyprom.co.uk/how-to-shop-prom-dresses-by-body-type

Fall Fashion: Cutest Organic Leggings for Fall

Looking for some ethical fall fashion that’s cute to boot? Check out these sweet handmade leggings!

Leggings are everywhere this fall. Ev-ery-where. And I kind of love it, because leggings are like pajamas that you can wear out of the house!

The trouble with leggings from the big box store is that you don’t know much about where they were made. Who produced them? Under what conditions? It can be tough to track down cute leggings that meet your requirements for ethical fall fashion.

That’s where handmade goodness comes in! When you buy handmade, you know exactly who produced the fall fashion finds in your closet. And when you buy handmade products that are also made with organic fabric, you’re doing an ethical double-whammy.

I’ve searched Etsy high and low and found the cutest organic leggings I’ve ever seen. These are my faves, and I’d love to hear about which crafters are making organic leggings that are rocking your socks!

1. Colorful Tribal Leggings - These sweet leggings by Shovava would be the centerpiece to any outfit. Pair them up with your favorite little black dress for a pop of color that you can feel good about.

pink bridesmaid dresses | prom dersses

2. Space Themed Leggings – Eleven44′s bleach-splattered leggings remind me of the solar system, and I love the ruching on the side. They’d be great with just an oversized sweater or your favorite dress over them.

3. Stones Print Leggings - Don’t you love this bold pattern from Komana? I could see these black and white leggings becoming a staple in my wardrobe for sure.

Of course, these are just a few of the awesome organic handmade leggings options on Etsy. Search the site for “organic leggings,” and you’ll find tons of other sweet fall fashion options. One tip: after you do your search, narrow down the category to just “women.” There are a lot of organic leggings on there for kids, and this will help weed those out.

Please Stop Putting Cats on Clothes

I love cats. For instance, real live cute felines like my friend Audrey Gelman’s ginger Persian-mix Lyle and Vogue's Thessaly La Force’s cuddly tabby Catberry. I also enjoy cat jokes: I follow @RealGrumpyCat on Twitter, and I’ve laughed out loud over LOLcats references ever since I Can Has Cheezburger was created in 2007 (I Can Has Prada Bagz?). I was even delighted to learn that Uber offered lovable kittens-for-hire (a fifteen-minute cuddle with a shelter cat) in honor of National Cat Day last week. But when it comes to putting cats on fashion—on bags, pants, necklaces and sweaters, headbands, rings, and loafers—I have a request: Please stop.

Now, for those cat lovers whose claws just came out, please turn your Maison Michel kitten ears this way and hear me out. We’ve now had over four years of fashion cat mania. It began on the spring 2010 runways, with a parade of arched backs and perky tails at Miu Miu. Those clothes were a conversation starter and compliment magnet: What are those on your dress? Cats? Aww! So cute! They were unexpected. They were intentionally cutesy, which made them funny. They flipped the notion of being a “cat lady” from something dumpy and lonely to a source of wit and pride. That moment of playing with expectations is what can make fashion interesting. But as we near the end of 2013, I’d like to argue that cats are an unrelenting trend. Talk about nine lives: Cats have outlived Burberry Prorsum’s owls, Balenciaga’s German shepherds, and even Givenchy’s raging rottweilers.

black bridesmaid dresses | cheap bridesmaid dresses

They’ve even stood their ground through the whimsy desert of Philo-inspired Minimalism—and they don’t appear to be backing down. Markus Lupfer, Moschino Cheap and Chic, and BCBG Max Azria all have cats on sweaters; Marc by Marc Jacobs has a cat with little almond eyes on all kinds of product (the character even has a name: Rue Cat); Charlotte Olympia, Oscar de la Renta, and Forever 21 sell quirky kitty loafers; and Eugenia Kim, Marie Mercié, and Topshop have offered many variations of eared hats, from beanies to berets and bowlers. The cat-fashion population is so plentiful that I’m tempted to round up any egregious examples, put them in a burlap sack, and send them down the river. But I won’t. Instead, I propose a compromise: Once the Miu Miu cats in the house’s spring 2014 collection and Karl Lagerfeld’s cat accessories inspired by his kitty Choupette are all sold out, let’s take at least a one-season break. A cat nap, if you will.

Because the more we saturate the markets with cats, the less funny, cute, and unexpected they become. Cats become a cheap trick, an easy way to make a fashion statement. No one can ignore an animal’s face on a sweater, or little lace ears. They will say something nice. But, in the process, they may actually be overlooking whatever it is you really have to say. Take a break to find what other clothes and accessories represent your intelligence and humor. Be a cool cat—and chill.

Shock Values: Jennifer Lawrence's Pixie Cut Takes Facebook

What is surprising about an image of Jennifer Lawrence—ensconced in the fuselage of a private jet, wearing a simple white tank, gold chain, and blazer—like the one the Oscar-winner posted to her Facebook today? Nothing, really, if it weren’t for the noticeable absence of her celebrated blonde waves.

Surprise! I have a pixie cut!

It’s a declaration that celebrities and stylish civilians alike have been announcing on social media with increasing frequency lately. Fourteen months ago, for instance, Lena Dunham presented her freshly shorn hair to the world with an image captioned: “I Miley’d the shit out of this Saturday.”

Ms. Cyrus herself chose Twitter to famously reveal her cropped and bleached locks back in August 2012. When Rihanna adopted a halo of ’80s-esque curls this past August, there was no need for a press release: @badgalriri broke the news on Instagram. Perhaps the most buzzed about haircut of the millennium so far—Beyoncé’s short-lived bleached-blonde pixie—has garnered nearly 357,000 Insta-likes to date (more than 797,000 if you count both pictures she posted).

where to find purple bridesmaid dresses in London | popular black prom dresses online

From a look at the tongue-in-cheek expression on Jennifer Lawrence’s face in her selfie, the actor seemed to understand the impact she was about to have on her dauntless fan base. It’s not the pixie itself that’s shocking—the style has been popular since Audrey Hepburn first catapulted it to fame in 1953’s Roman Holiday—but the dramatic departure from her familiar tangle of curls (most recently styled by Oribe in our September issue cover story) that proves so fascinating. If anything, her cut—rumored to have taken place on the set of an upcoming Dior campaign—seems fitting if you take designer Raf Simons’s preference for short, fifties-inspired hair on his recent runways into consideration.

The takeaway? The pixie is a persistent trend—but so, too, is the impulse to reveal one’s most provocative new look online.

Jennifer Aniston on Her New Short Hair—and Her On-Set Secret Weapon

If Jennifer Aniston’s beauty track record has taught us anything (see “The Rachel”), it’s that the actress isn’t afraid of taking the occasional hair risk. Just this weekend, she revealed that she had cut off more than six inches of her honey-colored hair with the help of longtime hairstylist Chris McMillan the night before. “I actually don’t have any red carpets coming up. This is truly just for me!” says Aniston—who recently finished promoting director Daniel Schechter’s Life of Crime (out next year) at the Toronto International Film Festival—about her swingy new jaw-grazing length. As a co-owner of Living Proof, the breakthrough beauty brand dedicated to eradicating frizz and reducing breakage, she’s no stranger to a good hair day, although she admits to taking a low maintenance approach. “The best thing about Living Proof is that you don’t have to wash your hair,” she says of finding herself able to stretch out the time between regular shampoos. “It makes your beauty routine easy during the week.” Here, fresh out of McMillan’s chair, she talks about her latest transformation, why she’s “not a lipstick girl,” and her favorite on-set secret.

What are your daily essentials for maintaining healthy, shiny hair?

If I’m letting it go naturally, I just shape it around my face because I have some pretty nutty cowlicks. I have a round brush that kind of gets them into position, and then I’ll put Living Proof Amp 2 Instant Texture Volumizer through the hair afterward to shape it. I try to do that as much as possible just because it’s less wear on my hair. If I know I’m going to blow dry it, I put in a leave-in conditioner or the Living Proof Perfect Hair Day 5-in-1 Styling Treatment that just came out. It’s kind of awesome.

You changed up your red carpet hair once, in June, with a tiny braid on the side. What inspired that?

My hair is basic, but I saw a picture of somebody else wearing it, and I thought it looked cool. Normally, I want to be able to run my hands through my hair and not think about it, but I liked that style. It was simple—although yesterday Chris McMillan actually chopped all my hair off, so it’s even simpler now!

Define “chopped it all off”!

It’s right at my jaw line, maybe a little longer. It was kind of spur-of-the-moment. I was flipping through the television channels and I paused it to take a picture and I sent it to Chris, and he said, “That’s [stylist] Lawren Howell from Vogue!” And then he said, “I just cut that!” So that’s it. He went way shorter than hers, but she was the inspiration.

And how do you feel with the new cut?

I don’t know, man. I did it! I feel great. I feel lighter. It’s simple, it’s really simple, that’s for sure. But I’m always one of those girls who does a big old chop just to get it really healthy, to repair all the [damage from] hair coloring and stuff like that. And I just got bored, honestly. It’s fun to change it up once in awhile.

What changes have you made in terms of styling it now that it’s short?

Well, I’m still figuring it out. He literally cut it Thursday night! It kind of dried on its own, we just shook it out. There’s a little round brush we used to get at the root, and then I took the Amp, and I put it all through the root so that it had a little bit of grit to it.

What is your best-kept beauty secret you’ve learned on set?

We start shooting Horrible Bosses 2 in a couple weeks, and I get to wear a wig for that. It’s fantastic, it actually saves your hair because you can put a leave-in conditioner in, wrap it, and then it’s like putting on a hat. It’s easy and fun and you get to change your look. I did that for Life of Crime as well. It’s one of those things they say: “Once you start wearing a wig, you’ll never go back.”

And what about makeup for the red carpet?

I leave that to the professionals! But I do like to focus on the eye. I’m not really a lipstick girl. I can’t keep it on that long! I would never do a lip with a smoky eye unless it’s a natural, tawny shade—or a glossy nude.

If we spilled out your makeup bag right now, what would we find?

Just so much crap! [Laughs] There’s a Chanel compact that’s got three eye shadows, three lip glosses, and a blush. It’s fantastic. You’d also find a lot of Laura Mercier lip liner, my Aveeno lip balm with SPF, my Benefit powder, Chanel mascara, and an eyelash curler.

What is your technique for getting your eyelashes so long and perfect?

I actually have a Japonesque heated eyelash curler. That’s kind of my new favorite. It sounds scary but it’s actually easy to use. I did try perming my eyelashes once. I would not recommend it!

popular bridesmaid dresses uk online | long bridesmaid dresses Northern Ireland

Know Your Royals: Grace, Caroline, and the Other Princesses of Monaco

To what can we attribute our enduring fascination with the royal family of Monaco? Just this week, we have seen a lavish screening sponsored by Ralph Lauren of the 1955 To Catch a Thief, starring the luminous Grace Kelly, radiant in Edith Head’s confections; tonight the Princess Grace Foundation holds its annual awards gala; next spring, Nicole Kidman will star in Grace of Monaco, a much anticipated biopic.

Why this ongoing romance with the Grimaldi brood? Well, for one thing, despite the European pedigree, the fairy-tale castles, the whole notion of a “principality,” this family’s modern lineage—okay, half of it at least—is all-American, giving rise to the notion that you, too, can grow up in Missoula or Maspeth—or in Grace’s case, the East Falls area of Philadelphia—and end up with a serious title. Someone who was actually rejected from Bennington College supposedly because her math scores were too low (feel better about your academic career now?) ended up as one of the most admired women in the universe, married to a genuine royal (even if he came from a country of less than one square mile that you previously had never heard of). It’s the original Kate Middleton story, except that the Duchess of Cambridge never worked with Alfred Hitchcock or costarred with Jimmy Stewart or William Holden.

No wonder that more than a half century after her magical nuptials—it is estimated that 30 million people watched the ceremony on television—we still have an avid (almost embarrassing!) fascination with Grace, her illustrious progeny, and their fashionable spouses.

Above, an informal family tree, and a look at the Grimaldi women’s unique and always compelling style.

where to find purple bridesmaid dresses in London | celebrity dresses Northern Ireland

Collette Dinnigan leaves high fashion with a final run of limited pieces

After two and a half decades at the height of high fashion, Collette Dinnigan has shocked and saddened customers, retailers and the fashion industry with the announcement that she will close her main label and cease creating the beautiful signature French lace and hand-beaded dresses for which she is renowned, after a final run of limited edition pieces.

Angelina Jolie, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry and the Duchess of Cambridge are among her customers but Dinnigan, who forged a multi-million dollar empire on the back of pretty lace slips, lingerie and dresses, will shut her boutiques in Sydney, Melbourne and London by the end of the year in order to devote more time to her children.

"It's been a very emotional day but I am still very busy for the next six weeks," says Dinnigan. Fans of the designer's work take note: as part of that final push: "There will be the last hurrah of limited edition pieces."

Rarely does a designer with the influence and following of Dinnigan cut short the fairy tale. Usually they retire or are bought out, with a hot young gun stepping in to continue the legacy. A legacy that, in Dinnigan's case, saw her single-handedly blaze a trail for Australian fashion in the late 90s, thrusting the world's spotlight on the country while others struggled to find their fashion feet.

"When I first started fashion was considered too fluffy for newspapers," notes the designer. "But I've had many newspaper covers and shown that fashion is a commodity and a viable business."

She remains the biggest designer success story to ever come out of Australia, and the only Antipodean to ever be officially invited by the Chambre Syndicale to show at Paris Fashion Week, where she first showed in 1995 having launched her label at the beginning of the decade with a collection of dry-clean lingerie. "My proudest moment was doing my first show in Paris and maintaining that for 18 years, doing 36 shows," Dinnigan says.

Her success can be attributed to her strong sense of signature. She has stayed true to her philosophy of creating runway-worthy gowns, while expanding into bespoke bridal wear, more casual prints and separates, and the diffusion collection Collette by Collette Dinnigan. (This more affordable line will continue to line the shelves at David Jones, Neiman Marcus, Matches Fashion and net-a-porter once the main label is closed.)

She has never deviated from her passion for luxury and quality, and as a result one can spot a Dinnigan a mile off – just as easily, in fact, as one can spot the legion of copycats that tried, and failed, to cash in on Dinnigan's love of French lace.

"If anyone wanted anything lace they always came to Collette Dinnigan," the designer says. "Now there's so many cheap copies it's sad. Lace is pretty and delicate and what is special about the brand is the emphasis was always on good quality, good fabric and cut and making clothes that stood the test of time."

While there is no arguing that the Australian retail and fashion industry is suffering financially, Dinnigan is and has always been in a league of her own, with her business set to make $14 million for 2014. So this was not a financial decision but rather an emotional and family one that Dinnigan made after her last Paris show.

"It's sad but other things always happen, and I am so excited to get to spend time with my children as they are growing up. The whole decision was based on that," says the designer. "I will spend Christmas and summer with my family at our farm and I am so excited as I haven't done that before. Usually it's been fleeting and I've had to work."

The question now is what will become of the Dinnigan devotees who, in an era of fast fashion, were happy to part with hundreds, even thousands, for a piece safe in the knowledge that it was only one of a rare few ever made – Dinnigan sewed that number into the garment.

A Dinnigan dress has always been a fashion classic that would hang proudly in their wardrobe and stand the test of time and the rollercoaster of trends. "Many daughters are now wearing their mothers' dresses," Dinnigan says. And as for all the brides who've been saving their hard-earned cash to ensure they are married in a Dinnigan … it's a gap that will be difficult to fill.

There are still a few months in which to purchase Dinnigan's high-end pieces, with the boutiques not closing until early January. And her diffusion line will remain, along with her children's wear collection which is relaunching at David Jones next month. She has also hinted that she is open to future designing collaboration opportunities. "It's a chapter closed but you know me, I can't stay away," she says.

But there will be no more of her signature inspirational creations, beautifully and thoughtfully crafted from the finest materials. One can only imagine the news will have fashion aficionados racing to her stores to snap up a coveted collector's item.

England bridesmaid dresses online store | popular long bridesmaid dresses uk online

Common Ghanaian Beauty Myths

There has been so much said about women’s beauty that the line between beauty tips and beauty myths has become blurred. So much so that at times, entirely untrue bits of trivia end up becoming a sort of truth for us that we believe and promote. So here’s a list of the most absurd yet common beauty myths, some of which even you may have believed in at one time!

1 Pluck a grey hair and you get several more:

This is the most common thing people hear when they sport their first grey hair and are advised against pulling it out to avoid ending up with several dozen more silver strands. It’s completely untrue because there are a limited amount of follicles on your head. So it doesn’t matter whether you pull out white hair or not, ageing will take its own course.

2 A razor shave will make your hair grow thicker:

Hair thickness depends on hair follicles, which lie under your skin. A razor doesn’t even touch that. The reason why hair may seem thick a few days after a razor shave is because they are shaved at an angle, which gives the appearance of a stubble.

3 Oily skin doesn’t need to be hydrated:

Oily skin is your body’s way of producing essential oils to keep skin and hair soft and healthy. These oils may end up clogging your pores which are cleared by a moisturiser. So if you have excessively oily skin, an oil-free moisturiser can work best.

4 Does a 2-in-1 shampoo work as advertised:

Conditioning and shampooing are two different things. A shampoo cleans your hair while a conditioner softens it. Most two-in-one shampoos are merely clever marketing ploys. For great hair, you should always shampoo and condition separately.

5 Eating fish with dairy products causes patches on skin:

Patches on the skin are caused by the destruction of cells that create melanin. The condition is called vitiligo and is in no way related to combining dairy products and fish.

where to find pink bridesmaid dresses in Birmingham | popular bridesmaid dresses uk online

Just Say No to the Sexy Halloween Costume

This time of year, every empty storefront in downtown Manhattan, my neighborhood, becomes a Halloween pop-up—vast emporiums filled with slutty Snow Whites and lascivious Betty Rubbles, voracious Raggedy Anns and insatiable Cinderellas. If the position of women and our success in the workplace has been gaining ground during the last half century, you wouldn’t know it from these places, where the female-friendly professions are confined to Blazin’ Hot Firefighter, Stop Traffic Sexy Cop, and Hospital Honey Nurse.

This is vaguely depressing—okay, more than vaguely—until it occurs to me: Why do we need these stores at all? Why should we spend good money on cheesy stuff that will barely last through Susanne Bartsch’s Halloween party when we can channel those funds into real clothing?

Who would buy a flimsy, nasty black cape and a dumb pointy hat when she could be a ravishing witch in a Yohji Yamamoto Y’s cropped cape coat for $440 with a flurry of pea-green Chanel Epatant Illusion d’Ombre eye shadow standing in for rouge on her cheeks? (If you want to spend serious money, Alexander McQueen has exquisite cape variations, including an example enhanced with pearls and made of a patchwork of fox, goat, and mink for $16,452.) And why settle for a packaged flapper costume (these ensembles are having a renaissance, no doubt due to Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby and Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire) when you can locate a gorgeous cerise chiffon beaded dress at H&M, knee-baring in front and calf-grazing in back, for $69.95? Enhance this with an extra-long strand of Fallon bike-chain pearls for $140.

Did the Met Costume Institute’s “Punk: Chaos to Couture” exhibit put thoughts of radical disaffection in your pretty head? A visit to Trash and Vaudeville can supply the $82 plaid bondage trousers, along with a $28 Ramones T-shirt. (Surely, you own your own biker jacket.) If a recent viewing of Kill Your Darlings, starring the post–Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe (his wizard costume is everywhere apparent at Halloween stores, but his Allen Ginsberg is nowhere in sight) spurs a desire for a Beat generation getup, Uniqlo can supply the obligatory black turtleneck for $79.90, you can get the black leggings anywhere, and Capezio, the company that likely shod all those Kerouac girlfriends back in the day, has the necessary ballet shoes for $19.50. And should anyone have the least doubt that you lean to the left of Adlai Stevenson, Miriam Merenfeld has a silver dogtag peace symbol pendant for $125.

But despite the imperatives of feminism and the fact that this is, after all, the twenty-first century, perhaps you are one of the legions of women who are hell-bent on using October 31 as an excuse to walk the streets like a literal streetwalker. To which I shrug and say, okay, well then at least purchase a beautiful L’Agent by Agent Provocateur polka-dot flocked tulle basque for $150, or a rhinestone-inflected teddy for $78 from Victoria’s Secret. For boudoir verisimilitude, add a pair of Mamie Van Doren–worthy marabou-trimmed mules by Jacques Levine, in business making these slippers without irony for the past 77 years. Throw a trench coat over the whole business—you never know who you’ll encounter in the elevator—then get out there and watch the parade.

Scotland vintage bridesmaid dresses online store | short bridesmaid dresses Manchester

Suite 1521 Takes Personalized Shopping to a New Level

“We are brutally honest! We say no as often as we say yes!” insists Kim Kassel, co-owner with Lizzie Tisch of Suite 1521, describing the special customer service they render to their fashionable clients.

In a retail landscape crammed with alternatives—from traditional shopping, to sample sales, to online high-fashion sites, to eschewing the current crop entirely and searching the Web for back-season bargains—arrives Studio 1521. The idea, dreamed up by good friends Tisch and Kassel, works like this: You join for $500; this enables you to attend a series of chic presentations featuring the complete runway collections from a roster of up-to-the-minute designers (the darlings of London Fashion Week are current favorites) at two-day trunk show marathons.

Usually the designer is present, and if not, someone from his or her atelier is there, allowing for a level of personalization and customization that is, according to Tisch and Kassel, what makes the business so unique. “When Giles [Deacon] was here, he brought someone from his production team, and you could really design your own piece with him,” Kassel recalls. “You get a toile, and he even comes back—he really gets into it!” There are benefits, as it turns out, for the designers as well as the customers. “It’s not just about how a buyer responds, but how a customer does,” she explains. “Sometimes designers are surprised that the age range we bring is both a 35 and a 65 year old.”

On the day I visit Suite 1521’s swanky Madison Avenue digs, Roksanda Ilincic, or rather her clothes, grace the spacious racks. The designer, busy opening her first boutique in London, sadly couldn’t make it, but her representative is cheerfully helping women decide on such delightful dilemmas as should a black shift be enlivened with a neon bright belt, lending a slash of hot pink or maybe lime? Some clients are lounging on the sofas and sneaking a Hershey’s Kiss from the mound under the glass top of the witty Wally Rizzo coffee table (Tisch found it on 1stdibs); one visitor has even brought her puppy. (Max is very well-behaved.)

Because Tisch and Kassel like to pair two designers, jeweler Ileana Makri is also here, presenting her trademark evil eye and snake-themed baubles, along with her newest collection called Geometry, which features diamond-laden delicacies that employ abstract shapes. Unlike the clothing, you can take these treasures home with you right away, though, if you decide your serpent ring should have emerald eyes, say, rather than ruby, you will have to wait a bit for your new pet. Makri says her customers love the privacy of shopping this way: “It’s a new idea—they create their own things. It’s more playful!”

Tisch and Kassel like to wear the designers they are touting, so this afternoon Tisch is clad in the Margot Lantern dress, so-called for the shape of its sleeves, and Kassel has a huge diamond Ileana confection, reminiscent of a snowflake, perched on one happy finger. The Lantern is a Roksanda classic, offered every season, and can be ordered with the waist and/or neckline subtly lowered or raised. Not least, the frock can be had in a spectrum of hues—there is a color card on hand to help realize your dreams. So if I want to have my Lantern with a tangerine and melon back and a hyacinth and daffodil front, would that be okay? “Probably, yes!” Tisch laughs.

Scotland vintage bridesmaid dresses online store | Greater London girls bridesmaid dresses online store

Where Vogue's Social Editor Is Going This Week

Alright, the fall mania is heavily underway this week: Monday night is Project Paz’s art auction. On Tuesday, it is Fashion Group International’s annual Night of Stars as well as Ralph Lauren’s book party for Bonnae Gokson’s delectable-looking book of cakes. Wednesday and Thursday nights’ line-ups have us firing on all cylinders with eight events on Vogue schedule for each night! A few of Wednesday’s highlights promise to be Barneys’ dinner for Sacai’s Chitose Abe cohosted by Sally Singer, Prada Journal’s fete with readings by two of my favorites Jonathan Ames and Gary Shteyngart, among others. There is also a party at Bookmarc for Craig McDean’s new photo tome.

And, of course, the Whitney Gala, this year honoring Ed Ruscha. On Thursday, there is Armani’s glittery One Night Only fashion show as well as Versace’s unveiling of the Haas Brothers’ special design project with a party at the SoHo store. At Omar’s, there is a dinner celebrating the one-year anniversary of the e-commerce jewelry emporium Latest Revival; there is another jewel-centric dinner at Lafayette, this one hosted by Julia Restoin Roitfeld for Swarovski. On Saturday, Allison Sarofim and Stuart Parr host their much-beloved Halloween party and this year’s theme, Welcome to the Jungle: A Night in the World of Gauguin, ensures some wild costumes—pun intended. (I found a vintage dress on eBay covered in a Gauguin Tahitian-maiden print, which I immediately snapped up and plan on wearing with aplomb.)

Meanwhile, in Dallas there is the Two x Two gala for amfAR, which seems to have evolved into a weekend-long Texan extravaganza, and in Los Angeles, Vogue’s annual CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund fashion show takes place, along with all the accompanying celebrations. Go west!

where to find purple bridesmaid dresses in London | popular long bridesmaid dresses uk online

Will the county commission create an adult dress code?

A vaudeville routine — one based on the difference between permission and ability — comes to mind when considering what could have been going on backstage before a recent meeting of the Maury County Commission’s Administrative Committee.
Apparently, cooler heads prevailed when discussion was postponed on whether county rules should prevent Americans from wearing T-shirts with political speech printed on the cotton during meetings of our county’s governing body, or even whether placards would be permitted. It seems like an adult version of fabricating a school dress code.
Anyway, somebody suggested that people attending county meetings be prohibited from expressing their political thoughts on shirts or signs.
Why? Well, recently in Columbia, there were many signs and people wearing shirts stating their opinion that the county should prevent the establishment of a landfill near the town line.
“You see,” one official could have told another before the administrative committee meeting, “you can pass a rule to suspend free speech, but you may not enforce it.”
Once there’s a violation of such a rule and a victim of its enforcement, then there’s a violation of the First Amendment protecting free speech. Setting aside what punishment might be imposed, if the victim wants to protect their constitutional right, they may go to court. In my opinion, the county would lose.
There’s no shortage of lawyers who would take the case. The county would pay attorney fees and legal costs. There might even be punitive damages. If the case was brought on behalf of an organization opposing the landfill, then the county might be funding an anti-landfill group.
Admittedly, that’s an extrapolation — just saying what might happen — but it’s a fairly simple legal issue.
Without extrapolating on the ramifications of state law on landfills, elected officials of Columbia and Maury County should by now know about Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 68, Chapter 211, Part 7. It’s the Jackson Law. It lists criteria upon which landfill plans must be judged. It includes authority for municipalities within a mile of proposed landfills.
This isn’t vaudeville.
England bridesmaid dresses online store | where to find purple bridesmaid dresses in London

The State Of Texas Vs. Prada Marfa

Even if you’ve never seen Prada Marfa—and unless you’ve made a pilgrimage to rural Texas’ unlikely outpost of conceptual art, you probably haven’t—you’ve no doubt heard of it. The eerie adobe installation in the middle of the Texas desert was created by the artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset in 2005. Though it is made to resemble a store, it is arguably more of a sculpture, given that it’s not open for business (or open at all—the doors are permanently locked). And it is not an official Prada location, though Elmgreen and Dragset did receive the company’s permission to use the logo, and the house donated Prada bags and shoes for the windows, albeit bottomless bags and only right shoes to prevent looting.

Most critics see Prada as a comment of sorts on consumer culture. Is it also an advertisement for a luxury brand? That’s what the Texas Department of Transportation is now arguing. And for that reason, the installation is in jeopardy of being removed.

“According to law, Prada Marfa is considered outdoor advertising, and a state license and permit are required. Prada Marfa does not have either of those,” said Texas Department of Transportation representative Veronica Beyer. “Obviously we appreciate artwork, and we enjoy seeing it across our beautiful state. But like all other outdoor signs, we have to make sure that they follow federal and state law,” she continued. “The real big issue here is that 10 percent of our federal transportation funding is tied to us following these laws. We are at risk of losing 10 percent of federal highway funding—which is huge for Texas.” When asked if the federal government had actually made any such threat, Beyer responded, “We need to check that out for you.”

“I was in disbelief,” Elmgreen said in response to TxDOT’s ruling. “They obviously work in a very slow pace in that office…How could this happen after eight years!” The answer may be that similar installations, like Richard Phillips’ collaboration with Playboy, which went up this past June, raised hackles; Playboy Marfa was deemed illegal and will be removed in December. Playboy Marfa, however, was situated just outside of Marfa, whereas Prada Marfa is set on private property twenty-seven miles out of town, and Playboy Marfa was commissioned by the magazine, rather than allowed by it. Beyer, for her part, confirmed that the decision regarding Playboy Marfa had thrown Prada Marfa into the spotlight; the piece was cited in legal discussions regarding the Phillips installation.

Fans have rallied around the artwork by joining the Save Prada Marfa initiative via Facebook and Twitter. “This is a piece that is adored by children, art critics, and truck drivers alike,” said Yvonne Force Villareal, cofounder of the Art Production Fund, which helped make the work a reality.

“We highly respect Richard Phillips, but definition-wise and legally, there is a big difference between these two situations,” added Elmgreen, whose work is now the subject of a new show at London’s V&A Museum. “Our work is not linked to Prada as a fashion brand. We could have chosen a different luxury goods label but Prada was and maybe still is the favorite fashion brand in art circles.” (He also compared Prada’s retail aesthetic to the minimalism of Donald Judd, the artist whose foundation helped to establish Marfa as an art destination.)

As of press time, TxDOT was still checking on whether the federal government was threatening to withhold funding due to Prada Marfa, and the possibility of a removal order remains. “Hopefully we don’t end up in a silly court case, but we will for sure fight to the end,” Elmgreen promised. “If it turns out that we have to remove the artwork—which would be extremely sad—we will erect another version somewhere else.”

FIVE THOUGHTS ON SENSATION AT MGM GRAND

1. Gotta say: What looks eye-popping on Sensation’s promotional channel on YouTube appears much more commonplace and understated in person. (It’s all in the editing, apparently.) The production for the October 5 Dutch dance event’s Vegas debut—part of an inaugural American tour of the “Ocean of White” theme—ultimately underwhelmed, from the uninventive use of lighting to the ho-hum eye candy (jellyfish, illuminated balls, waterfalls) that, frankly, had nothing on competing electronic music festivals Electric Daisy Carnival and Tomorrowland.

That said, the resulting ambiance did feel transportive on occasion, and between the elaborate center-stage setup and the platforming of an entire side of the MGM Grand Garden for VIP—the only ticket option to sell out—the venue looked almost unrecognizable.

2. The supposed unification powers of the all-white dress code apparently work. It was certainly hard to zero in on one’s differences when everyone more or less looked the same. And then there’s this: I watched a group of bros approach a group of flamboyant gay men, huge them all and wish them a good time.

3. Speaking of gay, with the mandatory all-white dress code, Sensation looked like the raver equivalent of the sort of “white party” popular with the LGBT community, though far less cruisy (but only slightly less gropey).

4. I had low expectations of the music curation, and sure enough, the “EDM” (read: mainstream and template-reliant electronic dance music) sets of duo Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano and Sensation closer Michael Woods were reliably banal and predictable, inspiring plenty of what I like to call non-dancing dancing—something I found myself executing, but only after three Stella Artois tallboys. How the overplayed offerings of Lana Del Rey/Cedric Gervais and Zedd fit the “narrative” promised by Sensation seemed vague, unless of course the definition of “narrative” was meant to be interpreted very loosely (or, as loose as a potentially fickle Vegas crowd might demand).

A shame, because there was certainly the establishment of something evolutionary early on with opener Mr. White, who kicked things off with a dark, dubby set. (Not sure what to think of that downtempo version of Prince’s “1999,” though.) The jock that succeeded him, Sebastien Leger, stayed the house course with a fun and funky set, full of grooves that had revelers legitimately dancing and facing away from him. Pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve heard a track from Philadelphia house/techno pioneer Josh Wink’s label (Ovum) inside the Grand Garden—or anywhere at MGM, for that matter.

5. Many wondered how a dance event could be pulled off in an arena with thousands of seats, but not me. Los Angeles has been having DJ parties in sporting halls since 2000, and this affair felt no different than ones I attended 13 years ago. Plus, per the non-dancing dancing, the EDM crowd doesn’t dance. They shuffle in place and pump their fists in the air, and they don’t need much room to do that. And with the visual element promoted so heavily, Sensation had already conditioned its attendees to be more like an attentive audience than a boogie-down throng—which makes Sensation no different than going to a Strip megaclub, and right at home in Las Vegas.

England bridesmaid dresses online store | where to find bridesmaid dresses cheap in Middlesex

Runway to Red Carpet: Sequined Lips and a Double Dose of Dolce

Last Friday night, Teen Vogue kicked off the weekend with its annual Young Hollywood party to celebrate the silver screen’s rising stars. To no one’s surprise, Kiernan Shipka ranked among the best dressed of the evening. Stepping out in a black top and silver and black paisley-print pants from Emporio Armani, the 13-year-old starlet consistently masters the fine art of appearing mature and sophisticated yet youthful and age-appropriate at the same time. Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland was also in attendance in a white Clover Canyon frock with a playful print that featured everything from colorful florals to skiers racing down the hem of the skirt.

Tilda Swinton, the master of androgynous chic, continues to nail menswear-inspired trends on the red carpet. On Wednesday evening she accepted the Douglas Sirk Award at the Hamburg Film Festival in Germany in an all-black Haider Ackermann pantsuit, accented with a diamond brooch and striking red lips. The following afternoon, Chloë Grace Moretz and Julianne Moore gave us a double dose of Dolce at the unveiling of Moore’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Moretz paired red heels with her blush-pink Dolce & Gabbana dress, while Moore opted for a pale yellow dress with sparkles along the neck and wrists. Meanwhile, on Thursday in Madrid, Hailee Steinfeld donned a black diamond-patterned skirt with a kitschy Markus Lupfer sweatshirt covered in sequined pouty lips to a photo call for her new film, Ender’s Game. Paired with knee-high black Stuart Weitzman boots (and bangs!), Steinfeld put a fresh twist on schoolgirl chic.

Kenzo's Gang of California Cool Girls

“The inspiration really came from California, and living near water,” Humberto Leon said backstage at La Cité du Cinéma, speaking to reporters at the sprawling venue on the outskirts of Paris, where he and Kenzo collaborator Carol Lim held the house’s spring show. The design duo, who hail from the West Coast, brought those themes to life on the runway with wave-crest prints, aquatic illustrations, one politically minded sartorial statement (Caroline Brasch Nielsen’s “No Fish, No Nothing” logo tee), and a finale that placed their model lineup behind a wall of water. Leon and Lim even had nail artist Naomi Yasuda conceive white-water manicures that featured a black base of MAC Nail Lacquer in Nocturnelle tipped with frothy alabaster brushstrokes of Vestral White.

When it came to their models’ hair and makeup, however, things seemed to take a cue from a less literal source: the unstudied ease of California cool girls.

“[The girls] are really supposed to be a gang—a beautiful gang,” said makeup artist Aaron de Mey, who focused on the eyes of Kenzo’s model tribe, because, as he put it, “they’re the power of the face.” Following a preshow test that had included a few different lid looks, all of them in varying renditions of black—including a nascent color-blocking idea meant to mimic the show’s graphic opening crop tops, coats, and pants—de Mey settled on a white iteration. “It just felt younger, fresher,” he said of the “reverse sixties” technique he applied, etching a very thin, straight line of MAC Acrylic Paint in White across the upper lash line. Adding to the raw, modern feel of the face was the notable absence of color elsewhere, save for some luminescent highlights on the skin: no mascara, no shadow, no contours, and no overly groomed brows; in fact, models who arrived with bleached arches were allowed to keep them that way in order to convey a certain sense of effortlessness. “I like [that] it looks like she could do it herself,” he said.

Hairstylist Anthony Turner was hoping to achieve a similar DIY attitude. “[It’s] almost like a boy would do it,” he said of models’ side-parted strands, which were slicked back at the crown using L’Oréal Professionnel gel and Infinium Hairspray to impart a wet, high-gloss feeling. As a finishing touch, Turner used a curling iron to create an irreverent bend through the lengths, the kind of indentation you might get from wearing an elastic band for too long. The effect was one part urban beach babe, one part Parisian sophisticate—and 100 percent Kenzo original.

Anthony Vaccarello’s Graphic Eyes and Smooth Hair

“It’s minimalist, confident, sexy—but it’s also playful,” said makeup artist Tom Pecheux at the Anthony Vaccarello show in Paris this afternoon, referring to the deep midnight blue square of eyeliner he was carefully drawing onto the outer corners of each model’s eyes. He had settled on the look with the designe the night before. “We tried a red lip first, but it was too established,” he explained. “The collection is very graphic and there are a lot of triangular shapes. We wanted something sophisticated, rock ’n’ roll but still young. Anthony’s woman should have fun with her makeup.”

Models, a number of whom—like Anja Rubik and Malgosia Bela—are Vaccarello’s friends and supporters, certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Many of them slipped outside to a sunny patch of terrace with views of the Eiffel Tower before being coaxed back inside by members of his team, who were hard at work perfecting the tricky wedge shape. Pecheux was drawing it on freehand using a deep black powder (from Estée Lauder’s Pure Color Eyeshadow Duo in Moons) before going over it with a striking jewel-toned shade of cobalt (the company’s Pure Color Gelée Powder in Fire Sapphire).

To balance the rest of the face, he kept the complexion fresh—which was no small feat considering the steamy indoor temperatures. “I’m using a drop of Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum and mixing it in with the foundation,” he explained. “It’s a trick that makes it stick, even in the heat.” Afterword, he swirled a soft wash of the rosy bronze blush (Estée Lauder Pure Color Blush in Sensuous Rose) under the cheekbones and dabbed a bit of natural flesh-toned lipstick (Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy lipstick in Insatiable Ivory, out next March).

Healthy, glowing skin, of course, is a central part of the Anthony Vaccarello formula—and there was plenty of it showing below the neck, too, thanks to the designer’s cutaway blouses and slit-to-the-hip skirts for spring. In a way, said hairstylist Anthony Turner, that body-consciousness had even impacted the hair. “There’s something Amazonian about the girls,” he said of their long, gleaming limbs. “And there’s also something sporty. We were talking about early ’90s Cindy Crawford, a very American woman.” He wanted to create the feeling of hair that had been casually combed back away from the face with the fingers, “but still uptown rather than downtown.” After combing L’Oréal Professionnel Tecni Art Full Volume mousse through, he blew it “straight back” and then flat-ironed it for good measure. Before models took the runway, he applied the company’s Super Dust texture powder, then raked his owns hands through it for an authentic feeling.

The finishing touch before models walked down the runway? A coat of Estée Lauder Pure Color Envy Nail Lacquer in Red Ego (out in March) on toes—because, as Pecheux put it laughingly with a gesture toward their sky-high, lipstick-red stilettos for the runway, “this is not a woman who wears flats.”

Kohl-rimmed Eyes—and Rock 'n' Roll Attitude—at Versace

The aesthetic influence of California subculture—from the long, lank hair of West Coast skate kids to the bleached-out blonde of L.A. surf punks—was a recurring beauty reference at the New York shows this season. And from a quick survey of the backstage scene at Versace in Milan tonight, its gravitational force may be growing.

“It’s girl-boyish, that L.A. androgeny thing. Donatella was inspired by Stephanie Seymour and Axl Rose,” said hairstylist Guido Palau, referencing the notorious early-nineties couple, who embodied the hard-partying lifestyle of the Sunset Strip metal scene.

Still, it wasn’t Seymour—the famously bodacious model who appeared in more than a few house campaigns—that Palau was thinking of when prepping models for the runway.

“Remember how Axl had that long, straight, clean-ish kind of texture?” he said, referencing the Guns N’ Roses singer’s famously good hair, which he was loosely recreating by parting models’ freshly washed lengths down the middle, then drying it with his hands. Afterward, he blasted it with Redken Powder Refresh dry shampoo for a natural, lived in feeling. “It’s actually quite minimal for Versace, but it still relates back to the house codes in terms of rock ’n’ roll sexiness,” he explained.

Of course, what better way to channel the gritty, tough-edged cool of the Sunset Strip than with loads of black eye pencil? “We’re using it inside the eyes and then going back and tracing it along the upper and lower lashlines,” said Pat McGrath, who went back over it with a grayish brown shadow “for a more smoked out” finish. Of course, this being Donatella’s house, it still needed a dose of high-octane glamour. “We’re using false lashes—one set and a corner,” said McGrath of doubling up on the outer edges for extra impact. With a swirl of blush and a dab of lip balm, she sent models on their way to first looks, where racks of slim-fitted denim jackets, mid-riff baring leather crop tops, and tongue-in-cheek concert tees awaited their turn on the runway. “It’s cool, but still healthy,” she said of the look. “And very, very Versace.”

prom dresses | white prom dresses

The Beauty Report: Boyish Updos and Perfectly Natural Brows at Tom Ford

Models must surely breathe a sigh of relief when they’re booked for Tom Ford’s shows. Along with the honor of walking in his clothes come full-scale pedicures and manicures, plenty of attention given to prepping the skin, and an enviable payoff: incredibly glossy, well-cared-for complexions and natural, healthy nails that look fresh even under the harshness of the runway lights. But then what else would you expect from the designer? “I make terrific skin care . . . yes!” he agreed, referring to his Intensive Infusion Ultra Rich Moisturizer which was mixed in with his Traceless Foundation Stick. “I was going for powerful, strong women. Some of the girls have leg muscles that are quite toned; their shoulders are broad like a swimmer’s; they’re fresh, natural, and athletic.” The look—tousled hair, bare skin, and no-manicure manicures—worked in contrast to Ford’s embellished, form-fitting evening dresses and boyish, sexy leathers. “When you have open-toe sandals and bare hands, everything shows, and when you think about who our customer is and who we are, well of course they have to be immaculate! Wearing no polish is harder than covering everything up with a dark shade; your nails and toes have to be perfect.” In the end, the flawless appearance was accomplished with just one coat of Naked on fingers with a clear top coat, and one coat of Toasted Sugar on toes, again with a clear top coat—all made possible thanks to two hours of cuticle pushing and nail buffing by manicurist Liza Smith and her team.

Achieving perfection—without it looking too perfect—meant a delicate balancing act for hairstylist Orlando Pita and makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury. Mid-conversation, Pita was distracted by a far-too-polished updo across the room: “She looks like she’s about to walk down a couture runway!” he shouted. “Not too high, it’s too ‘madame!’” Pita’s eminently covetable updos are boyish, “not too strict,” the kind of party hair that looks effortless, but get it wrong and it’s instantly aging. It’s a favorite look of Ford’s, inspired by his mother, who in the sixties liked to wear a classic Tippi Hedren hairstyle. The key to keeping it more subdued, and therefore more modern, is to leave out the usual preliminary blow-out—Pita used Schwarzkopf Osis+ Dust It Mattifying Powder instead to provide texture, then pinned the hair at the back, to emphasize the natural, boyish shape of the back of the head, rather than the angular, square shape more typical of the traditional French twist, before spritzing with plenty of hair spray—Orlando Pita’s T3 Control. At the last minute, pieces were pulled out at the front, to keep things loose.

Meanwhile, after dusting models’ skin with Tom Ford Beauty Bronzing Powder in Terra and giving the lips a touch of natural color—Ford’s Sheer Lip Shine in Bare—Tilbury saw something that needs correcting. “Your eyebrows are a disaster!” she said to one model backstage, before expertly softening the shape with a deft stroke of a brow brush and a quick touch of Tom Ford Beauty Brow Sculptor and then finishing with a “There you go, sweetie!” What’s the difference between a “disaster” and the full brows requested by Ford, and inspired by Margaux Hemingway? “Everyone’s eyebrows are naturally asymmetrical—what you’re trying to do is bring as much symmetry back into the face as possible,” Tilbury explained. She held up eye pencils next to the eye to demonstrate: “It needs to start parallel with the nose; the brow then rises to a point that’s in line with the pupil; then it should taper downwards to the end.” Like Ford, she is passionate about brows, spending a good 20 minutes getting them right on each model. “Everyone backstage is going to have to take eyebrow brushes with them,” she shouted to her team. Which is reminiscent of something Ford himself said directly after the show: “A lot of thought goes into these things . . . a lot of thought.”

Beaded Sweaters

In an ideal world, you would never write about anything you hadn’t personally fondled, examining up-close its precious (and not so) fibers, stroking its winky embellishments to see whether they are worth even a minor commitment of time and money. That said, I am, like the rest of you, hardly immune to midnight googling. Which is how, doing a bit of causal research into fall’s plethora of beaded garments, I come upon a pair of decorated pullovers that are either refreshingly irreverent or in spectacularly poor taste: a sweatshirt at Matches in England offering a mother-of-pearl and crystal depiction of a cartoon bird in a coffin under a chandelier (don’t you love Farfetch? How else could you peruse the stock at Concept Store Riga and Gallery Andorra?) and from ASOS, a gray cotton extravagance from the designer Ashish with Shut Up You’re Not My Real Dad shining in bugle beads.

Before moribund pets and teenage misanthropy arrive on the scene, I have already perused bedecked bombshells all over Manhattan, many of which exude a whiff of Dries Van Noten’s current collection, which featured, among other dazzling, spangled suggestions, a heartbreakingly seductive muffler decorated with swirled beads and shots of gold, that, despite a price tag hovering near four figures, is sold out all over the world.

At J.Crew, I fall deeply in love with a pale pullover, whose neck and shoulders are coated in dark beads, and have a brief fantasy of layering this under a vintage dress in a facsimile of the mesmerizing Prada fall 2013 collection, until a colleague brings me back down to earth by pointing out that I never wear pullovers and the likelihood of this look actually succeeding is depressingly slim. Still, if I insist on trying, for $49.95, H&M has a sweater smattered with rhinestones; for $179.20, the Outnet has a dignified N.Peal bead and crystal-encrusted cashmere crewnecks.

An extremely fetching item at Anthropologie called the Sequined Firecracker Shift (it looks the way it sounds) obviates the problem of what to pair with these fancy feasts. (Well, it’s really a nonproblem—assuming you own slim trousers, a plain skirt, or even a pair of jeans.)

But perhaps you are drawn more to the historical roots of this trend—those pretty decorated shrugs meant to lend a bit of unironic, cozy warmth to chilly shoulders more than a half-century ago. If strict adherence to authenticity is important to you, there are currently on eBay over 1,100 beaded vintage sweaters, everything from ivory cardies to ebony shells, variously laden with polka dots and peonies, starbursts and sunflowers. But search as you will, you will not find an item that disses your father, real or presumptive: Behavior that now seems frisky and semi-adorable would have landed you in reform school 60 years ago.

prom dresses | blue prom dresses

Backstage at New York Fashion Week: The Rise of the Blunt-Cut Bob

When Karen Elson turned up backstage at Jason Wu earlier this week, it was hard to take your eyes off her. A flame-haired beacon in a steely jade satin dress, the nineties-era supermodel was making her New York Fashion Week debut—with a new blunt-cut variation of her chin-grazing bob. “I was on a cover shoot for Chinese Vogue, and the hairstylist asked me if he could cut it. I said, ‘Sure, give me a trim,’ and he just took my ponytail and chopped it!” Elson recalls with a laugh. “I’ve never had my hair all one length before. It’s easy.”

From a quick survey of New York collections, she’s in good company. British stunner Sam Rollinson opened Rag & Bone with a ruler-straight variation of her brunette crop that lent a hint of tough-chic attitude to the label’s easy slip dresses and athletic crop tops; runway favorites Catherine McNeil and Chiharu Okunugi kicked off the spring 2014 season with ends so uniformly blunt, they looked like they’d been cut with a razor. They wore their shorter lengths, which fall somewhere between the chin and the middle of the neck, slicked back tight against the head at Prabal Gurung, where the hair conjured the controlled cool of a 1950s mannequin.

“There is something very elegant about it,” backstage fixture Odile Gilbert explained of the shearing technique which imparts an otherwise nondescript bob with a spirit of intention, at Altuzarra, where she was busy giving model Ashleigh Good’s collar-skimming length a severe dead-center part.

If a definitive sign that last season’s intentionally choppy DIY crop is giving way to a more geometric incarnation, you only had to look at Karlie Kloss as she dashed backstage between shows this afternoon. A recent on-set touch-up left the model—whose jagged, wispy bob has become so popular that it is more commonly referred to as The Karlie—with a more linear variation of her signature look. “That’s what’s great about short hair,” she said brightly, ticking off the list of styles she’s embraced over the past year. “I've had my bangs more shaggy, I’ve had it shorter in the back, I’ve played a lot with variations.” Let the blunt-bob mania begin.

The Film Festival and Miu Miu Women's Tales Series

As you’ll notice, I’m not sending a communiqué from London this week. Instead, I spent the weekend at the 70th Venice International Film Festival (my first), whizzing up the Grand Canal by motorboat to and from the Lido, trying to make out what it’s all about. The occasion which drew me there was Miuccia Prada’s premiere of two new movies in her Miu Miu Women’s Tales series, the fifth and sixth movies she’s commissioned—with a free brief—to encourage the work of women film directors. The overt link between the pieces is that all the costumes are from Miu Miu collections, but the real communality lies in the subtle sidelights shone on the roles clothes play in women’s lives. “The real subject,” she said, with a subversive glint in her eye, “Is vanity. What it is for us. That’s interesting, no?”

The Door, by the L.A. director Ava DuVernay, is a lyrical blues piece in which a jilted Gabrielle Union is visited by women friends who insist on coaxing her to eat, get dressed, go out, and start living again (and with the curative availability of the entire Miu Miu spring collection in her wardrobe—who wouldn’t?). Le Donne della Vucciria, by the Palestinian director Hiam Abbass, shot in Palermo, opens with a more fashion-ambivalent image: a couple of marionette-makers dressing wooden puppets in miniature versions of the fall Miu Miu collection. The camera pans into the market square outside where adult women, clad in the same clothes, start clapping and dancing as a troupe of musicians arrive.

But trust Mrs. Prada not to be content with just putting together her own mini Miu Miu movie studio to give women directors’ a leg up in their career visibility. An entourage—Carey Mulligan, Freida Pinto, Michelle Dockery, Gabrielle Union—posed on the red carpet, wearing Miu Miu, but they also came at Prada’s invitation to share their brain-power, humor, and experiences. There were panel discussions with and about women in the film industry and a surprise dinner laid on (without paparazzi) at the Prada Foundation’s Ca’Corner della Regina palazzo on the Grand Canal. The Venice Biennale happens to dovetail with the film festival, and Miuccia Prada’s inquisitive mind—and power as a patron—naturally crosses both domains. Guests including Marina Abramović, Bruce Weber, Harvey Weinstein, and Franca Sozzani enjoyed a private view of the foundation’s new exhibition, “When Attitudes Become Form: Bern 1969/Venice 2013.” It’s a re-creation of a sixties installation-art show, which might shake purists to the core, but provocation, increasingly, seems to be Mrs. Prada’s pleasure. These days, like a twenty-first-century salon hostess, Miuccia Prada’s getting a kick out of stirring up social cocktails, putting interesting people together who’ll talk, think, break taboos, speak up, and be frank.

I strongly suspect that what we see happening on the Miu Miu today, and all the women’s ideas she’s championing, can only be the very tip of the plans she’s musing about behind the scenes. What will come out of it? “ I don’t know,” the designer shrugged with a huge smile. “It is an experiment!” And with that, she was off at a trot toward Milan. The spring collection for Prada, after all, is due to be on the runway in two weeks’ time.

cheap prom dresses | prom dresses under 100

From luxury spas to street pedicures: two sides to Nigeria's beauty boom

Every Friday, Oladapo Akindele drops off his boss at the glass-fronted entrance of a luxury spa in Lagos. Then, while he waits for her, the driver has his nails polished and scrubbed in a cheaper but equally popular pedicure stand on the roadside next to open sewers.

Itinerant barbers who throw in manicures and pedicures are an enduring fixture in the choked streets of Africa's largest metropolis. It can prove a profitable trade in a highly fashion-conscious city. "I use these people all the time because I don't have time to visit salons when I'm driving from morning until evening," Akindele says as Indian oil is massaged on to his feet following a 150 naira (60p) mani-pedi.

The love of grooming across all social spheres tells a tale of two sides of the bustling city. Although natural beauty therapies such as honey waxes have long been popular in Nigeria, spas that elevate the pursuit of beauty to an extreme sport are a new phenomenon. At the top end, western-style establishments are booming in Lagos, promising glowing health and beauty with pure oxygen facials or 24-carat gold leaf wraps for those who can afford it.

"Ten years ago it would have been impossible to find a place like this in Nigeria," says one worker in the perfumed interior of an upmarket beauty parlour. After arriving from India six years ago, the spas' founders discovered there was enough demand for Ayurveda facials – using a blend of Indian herbs – to open another branch.

"It's nice that you no longer have to go abroad to get this kind of thing," says Yemisi Williams, a customer at another health club, as a Thai beautician smothers her body in a chocolate and marshmallow wrap and a concoction with crushed diamonds is plastered on to her face. "It's not just about looking good, because people are more aware of the health benefits too."

At the other end of society, the trade is dominated by Muslim men from the impoverished north of the country. Beneath a busy flyover in central Lagos, traders' voices pierce through the roar of traffic. A jingle of flattened bottle-tops announces men pushing wheelbarrows full of plastic barrels of water, the main supply in many areas of the city. The click-clack of scissors leads to the outdoor beauticians, who sit on benches, their equipment laid out on newspapers.

"Once I went to a conventional salon. It wasn't a nice experience at all. These people do a much better job for cheaper," says Bashir, a lawyer who has been visiting for nine years, as a barber rubs his newly shaved head with a local crystal pebble to prevent razor bumps.

"We do home visits too because big men don't like to come here," says Mohammed, a barber, as he gestures towards open gutters and ramshackle buildings. His clients include a local politician who sends his driver once a week to pick him up, paying 10,000 naira – a 200% increase on the usual price – to have his hair cut at home.

Treatments promise medical miracles. Customers gingerly step over trash-filled puddles to inspect bottles of honey from forests in the north, and bits of bark used as painkillers laid out on the kerb.

"The pharmacist actually directed me here," says Sesan Gbadebo, a policeman who was having his corns sliced off with a scalpel and a grey powder made of ground leaves rubbed on to his swollen feet. "If it's a small thing I'll go to the hospital, but for real problems I prefer here."

Not everyone is a fan. The men are periodically chased away by officials, who say their unorthodox methods sometimes worsen serious illnesses and risk passing on diseases including HIV. The barbers say they are careful to change razors with each client, although a frequent lack of running water makes it all but impossible to sterilise equipment.

Still, their steady stream of clients shows no sign of abating. "They know how to use local medicines to the best effect," says Aliyu Raibu, as a barber who doubled as a therapist prepares to treat his aching back using an ancient blood-suction technique, in which a dried-out bull's horn draws painful clotted blood from a tiny incision in the skin.