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☆ The Met Gala, in Photos
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-07 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Every Gala has a dress code, which is tethered to the exhibition. All of which makes it easy to forget this is actually an important fund-raiser for one of New York’s cultural pillars: the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It was once a free-standing museum, but when it merged with the Met in 1946, part of the deal was that the Costume Institute would have to pay for itself. Hence the gala, which raises all the funds for the institute’s operating budget. The Costume Institute itself has historically been housed in the museum’s basement — a clear statement about its status at the museum.

Persons: you’ve, —, Ballard, Katy Perry, Alexandria Ocasio, Cortez, ” scrawled, Kandinsky Organizations: Metropolitan Museum, Art’s Costume, Met, Costume Locations: East Coast, Alexandria

☆ Zendaya Is No Stranger to the Met Gala Red Carpet. But It’s Been a While.
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Callie Holtermann | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“The designers must fight to the death to dress you,” Kelly Ripa told Zendaya, the 27-year-old actress, as they discussed her preparation for this year’s Met Gala on a recent episode of “Live With Kelly and Mark.”Zendaya gave a knowing smile. So it is of intense interest to red-carpet watchers that Zendaya will return to the Met Gala on Monday for the first time in five years, this time as a co-chair. “We call each other our fashion soul mates,” he told Vanessa Friedman in a recent interview. Zendaya’s willingness to take fashion risks has been on display at her past five Met Gala appearances, which have involved chain mail, parrots and a color-changing Cinderella dress with a pumpkin carriage purse. But ascending the steps has not exactly gotten easier with practice, she told Ms. Ripa: “It’s still terrifying.”

Persons: ” Kelly Ripa, Zendaya, Kelly, Mark, ” Zendaya, ”, Jessica Testa, Law Roach, Vanessa Friedman, Ripa, “ Organizations: The New York Times

☆ The Man Who Never Says No to Zendaya
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-02 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | More About Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last March, Law Roach seemed to be at the peak of his career as a celebrity stylist. He had won the first stylist of the year award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and was working with Zendaya, Celine Dion, Anya Taylor-Joy and Anne Hathaway, among others. Rumors that he had thrown a tantrum because Louis Vuitton wouldn’t seat him next to Zendaya in the front row. On May 6, Mr. Roach is dressing Zendaya, a host of the Met Gala, which he is also attending. And he is plotting a certification course for would-be stylists, which will, essentially, mass-market and formalize his approach.

Persons: Law Roach, Zendaya, Celine Dion, Anya Taylor, Joy, Anne Hathaway, “, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Louis Vuitton, ”, Roach, Julia Fox Organizations: of Fashion Designers of America

☆ The Best Red Carpet Looks at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-27 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | More About Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Once a popular target of jokes about bad fashion (and not just from the evening’s featured comedian host), the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner has morphed in recent years into a less campy, more staid prelude to the Met Gala, which takes place days later. It’s only fitting, really, given the subtext of journalists being jailed around the world. Still, the bar for serious style has been raised by the mix of media, political and Hollywood figures that populate the guest list. Not that it’s just the celebs au fait with stylists and designer brands who are working the entrances. And whether Lara Trump, sitting with Politico, would represent in MAGA glory.

Persons: Biden, Brandon, John Fetterman, Gisele, Lara Trump Organizations: White, Politico Locations: MAGA

☆ ‘Challengers’: Normcore Clothes on Sweaty Bodies
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-25 | by ( The Styles Desk | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week “Challengers,” Luca Guadagnino’s film about love, lust and tennis, finally hit theaters after being delayed by the actor’s strike last fall. Starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist as racket prodigies reunited by fate and tournaments, with costumes by Jonathan Anderson (designer of Loewe, his own JW Anderson line and many Uniqlo collabs), it is a romp through competitions and clothes. Vanessa Friedman Aesthetics — clothes, colors, design — have always been important in Luca Guadagnino’s movies, but “Challengers” is the first time he has collaborated with a single fashion designer: Jonathan Anderson. Jessica Testa Well, it’s not often you see a major fashion designer step into a film costume designer role. VF I loved the whole pop-art aesthetic of the movie, but I can’t say any of the clothes screamed “JWA” to me.

Persons: ” Luca Guadagnino’s, Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist, prodigies, Jonathan Anderson, Loewe, Anderson, Vanessa Friedman, Luca Guadagnino’s, ”, Jessica Testa, Guy Trebay JWA, Luca, Givenchy, Blake Edwards

☆ The Meta-morphosis of Mark Zuckerberg
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-24 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In the run-up to Meta’s first-quarter earnings report this week, a video image of Mark Zuckerberg suddenly started going viral. Not because of the artificial intelligence assistant he was touting or because of the expected ad revenue growth, but because of the silver chain he was wearing around his neck. “Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement about something Meta is doing with A.I., but I could not listen to or retain a second of it because when I look at the Reel of him talking, all I see is necklace,” Amy Odell wrote in her Substack, Back Row.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, “ Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Amy Odell

☆ Caitlin Clark and the Best-Dressed at the W.N.B.A. Draft
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Their tunnel walks have been painstakingly documented; their fits have dominated the draft day conversations for the N.B.A. ; their love of Vuitton and Hermès has been parlayed into brands of their own. draft, following the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history and the most-watched basketball game at any level since 2019, that all changed. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Cameron Brink, among others, saw that style marker and raised it one. Stylists and brands are waking up and reaching out.

Persons: Vuitton, Hermès, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, ”, Rickea Jackson Organizations: Los Angeles Sparks

☆ Roberto Cavalli, a Life Out Loud
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-12 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | Jacob Bernstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

His animal prints did not always originate from nature but from his own imagination, chimeras of exotic skins that telegraphed excess, sex and aspiration. If Gianni Versace was the id of Italian fashion, Mr. Cavalli made it roar, hitting mass saturation in the late nineties as an antidote to the minimalism of Jil Sander and Helmut Lang. He stepped into the vacuum created by the murder of Mr. Versace in 1997, was further buoyed by the frothy stock market, and soon, Paris Hilton was wearing him. So was Candace Bushnell, creator of “Sex and the City.” Victoria Beckham was a fan during her Posh Spice era. Little wonder he was the main sponsor of the 2004 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute: “Wild: Fashion Untamed” — or that Ben Stiller wore Mr. Cavalli’s designs for “Zoolander,” Mr. Stiller’s fashion satire.

Persons: Roberto Cavalli, Tropez, Gianni Versace, Cavalli, Jil Sander, Helmut Lang, Versace, Paris Hilton, Candace Bushnell, Victoria Beckham, Ben Stiller, “, Mr Organizations: City, Metropolitan Museum, Art’s Costume Locations: Italian, Paris

☆ At the Japan State Dinner, Jill Biden Makes an Entrance
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There were silk and glass butterflies. There was an entree inspired by a California roll and a performance by Paul Simon. On Wednesday evening, as the Bidens hosted Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and his wife, Yuko Kishida, at the fifth state dinner of the Biden administration, Dr. Jill Biden, wearing an evening dress from Oscar de la Renta, stood with her husband to greet their guests of honor at the North Portico. Designed by Fernando Garcia and Laura Kim, the dress flowed in a watery fade from sapphire blue to light silver and was covered in hand-embroidered floral geometric beading. She was connecting to a longstanding relationship: Oscar de la Renta has dressed almost every first lady since Jackie Kennedy; Dr. Biden first wore the label for her inaugural state dinner in 2022.

Persons: Paul Simon, Fumio Kishida, Yuko Kishida, Biden, Jill Biden, Oscar de la, Fernando Garcia, Laura Kim, Naomi Biden, Hillary, Jackie Kennedy, Dr Locations: California, Japan, Portico, la, American

☆ L.S.U.’s Kim Mulkey Courts Controversy With Style
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The smog of a Washington Post exposé may have been hanging over Kim Mulkey’s head during the L.S.U. game on Saturday afternoon, but the highest paid coach in women’s collegiate basketball wasn’t going to hide. tournament, she had given a news conference threatening a lawsuit about the article, thus calling to attention to it. In part because there she was, running up and down the sidelines and screaming her head off. A gleaming pantsuit covered in a jumble of Op Art sequined squiggles, as if Big Bird had met Liberace and they’d teamed up for “Project Runway.”

Persons: Kim Mulkey’s, sequined, Big Bird, Liberace, they’d Organizations: Washington

☆ Valentino Enters Its Alessandro Michele Era
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The song has stopped in at least one game of fashion musical chairs. Valentino has a new creative director: Alessandro Michele, the former Gucci designer who left that brand in 2022. Mr. Michele, who was known for having transformed Gucci into a $10 billion powerhouse by making it a baroque treasure chest of inclusivity and magpie references, replaces Pierpaolo Piccioli, who parted ways with Valentino last week. The appointment, which was first reported by Vogue Business, brings Mr. Michele, 51, back to the heart of the fashion world. “It is a great honor for me to be welcomed in the Maison Valentino,” Mr. Michele wrote in the caption of an Instagram post shared on Thursday.

Persons: Valentino, Alessandro Michele, Gucci, Michele, Piccioli, Jared Leto, Harry Styles, Dakota Johnson, Maison Valentino, ” Mr, “, ” Organizations: Vogue Business

☆ When Sean Combs Was ‘Living the American Dream’
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Jacob Bernstein | Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Long before he was accused of sexual misconduct in a series of lawsuits, and long before federal agents in military gear raided his homes in Miami and Los Angeles, Sean Combs was unforgivable. That was the name he had selected for his first fragrance, which he sold through a partnership with Estée Lauder. It was promoted as a scent that “exudes the energy, sexiness and elegance of Sean Combs,” and he was supposed to give it a publicity boost in April 2006 by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange alongside William Lauder, the Estée Lauder chief executive, and Terry Lundgren, the head of Federated Department Stores. But Mr. Combs didn’t arrive in time for the opening of the market, saying he had been stuck in traffic. So his fellow business titans did the honors without him.

Persons: Long, Sean Combs, Estée Lauder, ”, William Lauder, Lauder, Terry Lundgren, Combs didn’t Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, Federated Department Stores, titans Locations: Miami, Los Angeles

☆ Dries Van Noten Announces Retirement
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-19 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | Jessica Testa | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a shock to the fashion world, Dries Van Noten announced that he was stepping down as creative director of the brand that bears his name. His fall 2024 men’s show, scheduled to take place in Paris in June, will be his last. “My dream was to have a voice in fashion,” Mr. Van Noten, 65, wrote in a letter sent to editors. Now, I want to shift my focus to all the things I never had time for.”Mr. Van Noten was an original member of the Antwerp Six, the group of Belgian designers who changed fashion when they arrived in Paris in the early 1980s. His last women’s show, held in late February in Paris, was an emotional, generous paean to style over fashion and the creativity of dressing oneself.

Persons: Van Noten, “, Mr, ” Mr, Van Noten’s Organizations: Antwerp Locations: Paris, Belgian

☆ Kristen Stewart Uses Naked Dressing to Make a Point
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-18 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even in the context of the current pantsless trend prevalent on the runway and in some celebrity circles, as well as the vogue for thematic dressing at movie openings, Kristen Stewart’s looks during her press tour for “Love Lies Bleeding” have stood out. Rarely has an actress been so unapologetically, gloriously undressed. That’s a lot of subtext under very little — clothing, that is. Margot Robbie had fun dressing à la Barbie during her “Barbie” press tour; Zendaya captured eyeballs and social media during her “Dune: Part Two” camera calls dressed in sci-fi-themed Mugler, Givenchy and Alaïa; and the cast of “Godzilla Minus One” walked the Oscar red carpet in matching lizard-heel footwear. But with her “Love Lies Bleeding” appearances, Ms. Stewart took the concept of character cosplay to a new, more pointed level.

Persons: Kristen Stewart’s, gloriously undressed, Stewart, Tara Swennen, adroitly, Margot Robbie, Barbie, Zendaya, ” Locations: Givenchy

☆ Phoebe Philo Breaks Her Silence
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-17 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The last time Phoebe Philo, who has been called “the Chanel of her generation,” gave a formal interview was a decade ago. The designer, whose work offered women respite from the limits of the male gaze, has never been all that interested in explaining herself. “I say most of what I feel, and most of what is worth me saying, through what I make,” she offered recently. Under the bomber she wore gray pinstripe trousers and a matching oversize shirt. When Ms. Philo speaks, she does so in elliptical phrases, using questions as an opening to more questions.

Persons: Phoebe Philo, Chanel, ”, “, Philo Organizations: Bond Locations: Ladbroke Grove, London, oversharing

☆ Do Designers Really Expect Us to Wear Those Ridiculous Clothes?
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Do designers really expect us to wear those outlandish looks they show on the runway? I look at the images and can’t imagine anyone walking down a street in most of those clothes, no matter where they lived. — Mary, Auckland, New ZealandThis is one of those questions I have been asked pretty much every season since I started covering the runway shows. Another one is about why models never smile, which I answered last season, and I get it, I really do. (As does Mr. Owens himself, who told me backstage he had figured out a way to produce and sell the ropy looks.)

Persons: — Mary, catwalks, Who, Max Mara, Van, Rick Owens, Owens Locations: Auckland , New Zealand

☆ Clothes That Make You Feel Smart
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-04 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before the Balenciaga show, Demna, the mononymic creative director of the brand, went shopping. Specifically, he bought 800 different objects on eBay, which he haunts for the porcelain figurines, lace napkins and antique fabrics he collects. But he didn’t buy the 800 pieces for himself: He bought one for each guest at his show. The point was to consider the hours and attention required to handpick that many different objects for that many people, and how it was an investment of a different kind: Which was the greater luxury? To clothes that don’t demand too much.

Organizations: eBay, Vogue

☆ The Verdict on the New Alexander McQueen
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-03 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I was thinking about that a lot over the weekend, in part because of the designers here who, like Ms. Apfel, have built empires (or at least small fiefs) on a willingness to go their own way — Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto. Designers with a deep understanding of the rules and history of fashion and an equally powerful ability to rewrite both, and to imagine a different world. One whose uniforms can look bizarre and outrageous, but which create a sense of thrilling possibility: clothes like permission slips to think out of the box. And also because in Seán McGirr’s debut at Alexander McQueen, a house that once did all of the above, it got so very garbled. A McQueen MisstepMr. McGirr had the complicated job of taking over from Sarah Burton, the longtime deputy to Mr. McQueen, who had stabilized the brand after the designer’s suicide in 2010 and made it her own, adding a touch of grace to the angry romance and soaring imagination that traversed heaven and earth and that, combined with great technical proficiency, defined the McQueen name.

Persons: Iris Apfel, Apfel, Rick Owens, Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander McQueen, McQueen, Mr, McGirr, Sarah Burton Organizations: Paris, Designers

☆ Millennials rejoice: Wedge sandals are back!
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Katie Notopoulos | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Chloé's runway show this week featured models (and celebs) in high-heeled wedge sandals. It wasn't the clothes on the models but rather the image of the celebrities sitting in the front row — all wearing big, chunky platform wedge sandals. Technically, Vogue already declared "wedge sandals are back" last April. AdvertisementElder millennials have suffered the indignity of seeing some of the trends of their youth come back — low-rise jeans, trucker hats. But wedge sandals?

Persons: —, Chemena Kamali, millennials, Vanessa Friedman Organizations: Service, Vogue France, Vogue, New York Times Locations: Paris

☆ There’s a New (Old) It Girl in Paris
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For years the Chloé Girl was effectively another, more branded, version of the It Girl. I can’t think of another label that has such an imaginary person, rather than a logo, to embody it. That Chloé Girl is redolent of youth and energy; of freedom and romping in the sun-kissed daisy fields. She is a little bit hippie, a little bit rocker, a little bit romantic and a lot insouciant. And although that version of the Chloé Girl had been absent from fashion for awhile, on Thursday in Paris Chemena Kamali, the new creative director of Chloé, brought her back.

Persons: Gaby Aghion, Karl Lagerfeld, Phoebe Philo, Stevie Nicks, Jane Birkin, Kate Moss, Kamali, Chloé Locations: Paris

☆ Dressing the Forgotten Woman
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

“As always, she wakes up just before the alarm goes off.”“As always, she gets up in the dark and walks into the bathroom.”“As always, she quickly looks into the mirror. Yes, That’s her. Forty years old, mother of one, single, working.”So went the voice-over at the Undercover show: a prose poem written and read by the film director Wim Wenders. Certainly, a woman I know. Conventional wisdom has it that the promise on the runway should be aspirational — the person I want to be (richer, thinner, taller, more fabulous, more rebellious, more sexy, etc.)

Persons: ”, That’s, Wim Wenders

☆ Breasts, Breasts, Everywhere
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

That’s all I could think when yet another Saint Laurent model appeared wearing what was essentially a nylon stocking transformed into a dress. Of the 48 looks teetering out on needle-sharp stilettos in the Saint Laurent show, only 12 didn’t have breasts front and center (and of those 12, three were minidresses with their own built-in garter belts to attach to the stockings below). Forget about the practicality of making a pantyhose dress, or the question of who would want to wear it in the first place. Maybe at one point, when Yves Saint Laurent was first pushing boundaries and making a sheer blouse back in 1966, so much visible skin was a shocking, subversive thing in public or on a fashion runway. Maybe in the beginning it was empowering: an escape from the prison of old mores and outdated gender rules.

Persons: Laurent, Saint Laurent, Yves Saint Laurent

☆ Get Ready for a Fashion Vibe Shift
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-25 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There’s a change underway in fashion. Continued in New York, at Willy Chavarria, who set a family-size table of sartorial intention. And in Milan, was picked up by Francesco Risso at Marni, who boiled fashion down to its essence so it could begin again. Papering in white a cavernous warren of rooms under a railway track, so it resembled some sort of petri dish, Mr. Risso birthed a very chic primal scream. These would not be easy garments to wear, but they sure jolt you out of your torpor.

Persons: John Galliano’s Maison, Willy Chavarria, Francesco Risso, Risso, Outerwear Locations: New York, Milan, Marni

☆ Prada Schools the TikTok Crowd
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-23 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Miuccia Prada, currently American Vogue’s pioneering septuagenarian cover girl, was standing backstage after the Prada show, bedecked in emeralds and jade and looking slightly terrified as Emma Watson and hordes of well-wishers and journalists swarmed around her like locusts. Such is life when you transcend the role of designer and become more like a divining rod that indicates which way the cultural water is flowing. Toward “history,” she said as her co-creative director, Raf Simons, sipped Prosecco beside her. Or to be specific, toward the way history teaches us about where we are going. Besides, fashion can bring the point to life as well as any lecture.

Persons: Miuccia Prada, Prada, Emma Watson, ”, Raf Simons, sipped, Simons, ” It’s, “ Oppenheimer Locations: Milan, Russia, Ukraine

☆ Was This the Most Democratic Fashion Show Ever?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-22 | by ( Vanessa Friedman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Autocracy may be much in the news, and increasingly in vogue depending on the electorate, but as Milan Fashion Week began, democracy was in the air. Then 1,000 viewers signed up to sit “front row” from home, their faces live-streamed on screens all around the show venue, so as they were watching the audience and the models on the catwalk, the audience and the models were watching back. So the crowd at the show could see, for example, the viewer who decided to disguise themselves using an alien filter, resembling a creature from “War of the Worlds,” or the viewer who situated her generous cleavage right in the middle of the screen, or the ones who watched with family members, or their dogs. So the show crowd would be reminded, in other words, of the people it was really all about. Fashion, in essence the most dictatorial of disciplines, where designers traditionally handed down styles like edicts from on high, has been theoretically democratizing for awhile now — ever since it jumped from the salon to the store via ready-to-wear, which changed the barriers to entry from class and caste to pocketbook.

Persons: Glenn Martens Organizations: Milan, Diesel

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