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@Everyone:
So this new strategy\tactic seems to be in full force. Be on the look out for this "mark":
 X
I am sure most of us understand the meaning behind most original emoticons. And if you are unaware, the letter "X" is sometimes used to describe something that is unknown. I am pretty damn sure you can figure\understand what the mark really means. The "mark" is temporary. Any requested information pertaining to the "mark" is declined, withheld, for obvious reasons.
I am tired of seeing some gurls in here being taken for a fool because of these new tactics that has just now, VERY recently, been implemented with the purpose of covering one's tracks, to blend in, under disguise, in an effort to create a somewhat genuine\legit foundation, but then hit up JCF with more B.S. meat (coded) that we do NOT like or even wanna see! I predicted this activity roughly 2 months ago through the analysis of something suspicious.
They are getting more clever, sneaky like. Trying to pull a fast one, but not good enough for me. All you will see is a mark. What action YOU will take next is solely on YOU. YOU are under NO instruction\demand\command\request\advisement\direction by myself for what ever action you take in regards to the "mark" and what ever is connected to it, in relation to. In other words, i am NOT responsible for your actions be it positive or negative. All i provide is information in the form of characters, letters, and numbers that may be VERY helpful to some, if not all. My abilities are restricted, limited, to an extent that prevents direct action, but instead employ circumvention strategy's.
Abusers of the JCF have taken things to a whole new level. The question is, will it get worse in time? I can foresee it. Such activities won't stop me from hunting and doing my part. The ONLY thing that would stop me, would be expressed notification, warning, from JC to cease my hunt and\or till an effective anti-meat (coded) system is installed in the site. For i would comply.
As always, be CAREFUL, be smart, and when in doubt, check it out. AVOID clicking on any links (in the form of web addresses, highlighted words, etc) and visiting ANY site that is being promoted in the forum UNLESS such information is promoted by a LEGIT user! Also, in general, avoid opening suspected meat (coded) threads as there is a POSSIBILITY that you will be auto directed to another site without your control. This has been proven and there is proof of this activity. If you like, you may PM me to have ME investigate the thread first (thread name and location ONLY - NO web link!), for your own system\privacy protections should your system not be well protected. Should the thread be safe to open, i will give you the go ahead. But will note i make NO guarantees as the thread could be edited after clearance has been given. Keep that in mind.
I do what i do to save gurls time, hassle, and possible embarrassment and to also keep JCF free from being overwhelmed by the meat (coded) that has the potential to destroy JCF in more ways than one. I dedicate my time, knowledge, and experience in helping REAL gurls in the community (JCF), so that we all have a B.S. free environment (in regards to meat (coded) ONLY).
Princess Tiffany 
Ban underfed and underage models in fashion, MPs urged
Models have urged MPs to consider tougher rules for the fashion industry, describing catwalks full of models with advanced eating disorders, some surviving solely on popcorn.
Rosie Nelson, whose Change.org petition calling for new laws for health standards in the fashion industry has attracted more than 110,000 signatures, told the all-party parliamentary group on body image that she had constantly been urged to lose weight, with one agency saying she needed to be “down to the bone”.
“Friends at shows saw models who fainted and had to be dragged off the stage, quickly replaced by another girl,” the Australian-born model said. “At one stage, all I ate was fruit and vegetables, nothing else. One girl I knew only ate popcorn.”
The committee, which is chaired by the Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, is considering pressing for legislation. It heard from models and agencies for both traditional and plus-size models, as well as health experts and the models’ union, on whether Britain should follow countries such as France, Spain and Israel, which have rules to prevent models with eating disorders being used on catwalks and in fashion spreads.
Nelson, 23, told the MPs she had been turned away by British agencies for not being thin enough. “I went back after I lost weight, and I was told I had to lose more. I couldn’t physically have lost more weight at that time. And it’s upsetting that 16-year-olds could, at this very minute, be being told the same thing.
“Every time I went into an agency, I was prodded and poked and measured with a tape measure,” she said. “I used to dread it.”
The founder of the modelling union at Equity, Dunja Knezevic, a former catwalk model who once developed hypothermia on a fashion shoot, told MPs it was not unusual to see extreme symptoms of eating disorders at shows.
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“I saw queues of girls at Milan fashion week with this fur all over their bodies, what the body produces to keep warm when there is no fat left. They were covered in it and I was just mesmerised by how hairy they were,” she said.
“It is not true that girls who are unhealthy don’t work. Some agents like that unhealthy look, with drawn cheekbones, and make-up can cover up any effect on your skin that an eating disorder could have.”
Knezevic called for a crackdown on underage models on the catwalks, whom she described as “cheap labour, 14-year-olds from Siberia who come over, are paid badly and end up even owing money to the agencies because when they grow, develop into women, they can’t fit the sizes”.
The Bosnian model, who has developed a fashion industry code of conduct with the artists union Equity, said she had never herself been told to lose weight. “I was always naturally very small, my concern was always for my friends.
“A voluntary code [for model’s health] will not work,” she continued. “Of course the industry knows the effect it is having, but it doesn’t care, it likes being the ‘glamorous bad guy’.”
But modelling agencies were defiant at the meeting, with one top agent insisting he had seen only two girls in 15 years whom he considered to be too unwell.
John Horner, managing director of Models 1, which discovered the models Twiggy and Yasmin Le Bon, said he rarely encountered models who made themselves unwell from extreme diet and exercise regime. “I think I’ve seen two who looked unwell and we needed to have a conversation,” he said.
The Conservative MP Rebecca Harris said the figure of two models in 15 years seemed very low. “I wonder if the industry might be inured to the very thin, and you don’t recognise the signs as well as you think you do,” she said, which Horner’s Models 1 colleague Karen Diamond said was possible.
Diamond said the agency’s “new faces” were given a copy of James Duigan’s book Clean & Lean Diet, which she said promoted a “very healthy, very toned physique which we would all benefit from if we stuck to this regime”.
The agency knew signs of an eating disorder to look out for, Diamond said. “There is a certain skin palette,” she said. “If a girl is making herself sick, she might have bad breath, it could affect her teeth, sometimes you see a downy hair appearing on the body.”
But the former fashion editor Caryn Franklin, who co-founded Allwalks Beyond the Catwalk, an organisation that promotes diversity in beauty ideals, said those symptoms were “the extreme end of eating disorders, models can keep themselves just below the radar”.
Health experts who also addressed the panel of MPs said eating disorders could not just be assessed on appearance. “You wouldn’t be able to see if a girl has thin bones, you wouldn’t be able to see if they weren’t having periods, you wouldn’t be able to see if they had mental health issues,” the GP Dr Ellie Cannon told the Guardian after giving evidence.
Diamond said she would encourage designers to send bigger sample sizes, saying some labels had asked for as small as 33in (84cm) hips, which she regarded as “bordering on being physically impossible – I wouldn’t try to make a girl fit that.”
Different laws have been passed worldwide to try and tackle the issue. Spain already bars models with a body-mass index (BMI) below 18 from taking part in Madrid fashion shows, and models on Italian catwalks must show health certificates under a self-regulation code. The World Health Organisation guidelines state that an adult with a BMI below 18 is considered malnourished, and 17 severely malnourished. The average model has a BMI of 16.
Diamond said she would be open to an age restriction on catwalk models under 18, but cautioned against using BMI to measure health. “Fashion models have a certain physique,” she said. “Most fashion models are under 18 in BMI, that doesn’t make them unhealthy, but it is very difficult to police.”
Nokes, who will now write a report on whether to push for any legislation on the issue, said she was inclined to agree that BMI was not the right way to measure models’ health. “But it’s clear designers and agencies are a million miles away from the general public on this,” she said.
Nelson told the Guardian after the meeting she was frustrated that the fashion agencies, who gave evidence first, had not stayed to hear from the models. “They were not willing to hear personal stories and it shows they don’t expect change to happen,” she said.
Among the models speaking at the session was the plus-size model Hayley Hasselhoff, whose father, the former Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, was watching in the House of Commons committee room.
Hasselhoff said she had not faced the same pressures. “But I heard of models who started at 14-year-old with such small hips, and then at 16 agents said ‘are you slacking off?’ and they would say back, ‘what, no, I’m just growing, I’m developing.’ Girls feel they have to go to extreme length to live their dream.”
Models 1’s Horner said there was very limited demand for plus-size models. “They are paid less than regular models, there is certainly discrimination there,” he said. “The vast majority will work in catalogue, not editorial.”
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The Adelaide-based online boutique you need to bookmark now
Who doesn't love an evening filled with online shopping? Taking time out to browse those clean, white pages of product that have been carefully curated for your eyes is slowly replacing our collective love for window shopping. If you’re getting ready for Adelaide Fashion Festival, the best place to start is with this Adelaide-based online store.
For Adelaide-based online store Love Twain's co-directors Ena Vujcic and Ash Wilby, creating a world where designers are championed, brand stories are like fairy tales and fashion is the main event was always the goal.
"We wanted an opportunity to tell stories and shine a light on those working behind the seams," the pair says of launching their e-commerce platform in 2012. "We wanted to tell stories of the seamstresses working over 300 hours on one couture gown, the PR teams who helped build brand profiles, the fit models who don't necessarily walk the runway but worked even closer with a design team. Some love the front stage but we were all about the backstage action. There was also a huge craving to uncover the latest names in the industry before they were on everyone else's lips."
It was this, coupled with the pair's keen eyes that saw a huge gap in the market at the time, a gap that meant customers were not always aware of how their clothes were made and where they came from.
"Reminding them what it means to choose quality pieces and giving them the confidence to go against the grain and invest in designers who weren't necessarily saturating their Instagram feeds - yet! And therein lays our tagline and ethos – for the trendsetter," the pair reiterate.
Stocking brands like Georgia Alice, Acler and Isabelle Quinn the platform has quickly gained a reputation for finding the best new talent for their audience.
"Audiences respond best to pieces that have a story to tell. Hand-made and locally produced items are always in high demand," the co-directors tell us, adding that, "They enjoy educating themselves on what they are purchasing and shopping all on one platform. At a time when we're over consuming and everything is accessible, women want to be part of something more, to be part of an emerging designer's story and to wear their pieces proudly."
So what advice does the Love Twain duo have for shopping online successfully?
"The biggest mistake would be investing in statement pieces without building on a good base first. Ensure your wardrobe has a few pairs of quality jeans, a selection of basic tees and classic cut blazers before you invest in seasonal trends and prints you will be sick of in a few months. Build a good base and add personality with statement accessories. It's also so important to know your style and to purchase pieces you will be comfortable in. There's no point in buying a skirt doing the rounds on Instagram you are obsessed with if it's not something you will wear with confidence, or even worse, at all!"
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Pierre Bergé obituary
Pierre Bergé, who has died aged 86, was crucial to the 20th-century change in couture from a craft enterprise to an international megabusiness. His Napoleonic belief in his destiny was not focused on fashion until, at 29, he met at dinner Yves Saint Laurent, the fragile prodigy aged 22 who had suddenly inherited the house of Christian Dior. It was love at first conversation, about everything but fashion, so intense that Bergé forthwith left the artist Bernard Buffet, whose amanuensis he had been for years.
From then on, it was all about Yves. When Saint Laurent broke down during a rough first month as an army conscript, Bergé tracked him to a military hospital, and used his formidable energy and social aptitude to gain access. He became Saint Laurent’s support, suing the house of Dior for damages (Marc Bohan had taken Saint Laurent’s job) to fund an independent YSL atelier to which Dior personnel defected.
Bergé grasped that Paris couture was ailing, its houses’ commercial ventures too tentative when demographic and economic forces were opening up markets. He persuaded, or browbeat, Saint Laurent (Bergé alternated as hard and soft cop) into ready-to-wear in 1966, a financial and critical success.
Perhaps their compatibility – also combatability, given their opposite temperaments – came from outsidership. Saint Laurent was from Algeria, Bergé from the Île d’Oléron, an offshore island in the Bay of Biscay. Both had scant formal education and dreamed of Paris. At 17, Bergé left his father, Pierre, a civil servant, and mother Christiane (nee Sicard), to make his fortune in the capital. His accounts of his rise sound like a young-man-on-the-make from a Balzac novel; he traded in old books (collecting rare volumes all his life) and at 19 founded a shortlived anarchist magazine, La Patrie Mondiale.
However, Bergé’s gift lay in meeting persons of consequence, by contrivance or accident: he claimed that the poet Jacques Prévert fell out of a window on to his head, that he shared a cell with the writer Albert Camus after a demo. Through Buffet he knew Jean Cocteau, through Cocteau Dior – et voilà! – Saint Laurent.
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YSL ready-to-wear was merely Bergé’s initial bold move; as company president, he sold its rights in 1971 for capital to invest in a different way of staging couture shows, more like rock concerts, with clothes as loss-leaders to promote licensed accessories and perfumes. (YSL made enough to buy back the rights in 1973.) Bergé made complex deals when the luxury conglomerates of today had not yet managed their first merger; in 1986 he sold 25% of YSL for enough to buy Charles of the Ritz, which owned rights to Saint Laurent perfumes and cosmetics.
In 1989, the YSL group, with its Bergé–generated internal synergy, was the first designer house listed on the Paris Bourse, oversubscribed by 27 times. Those who got shares did exceptionally well for a while, but Bergé did better. He was fined 1m francs for insider trading, selling shares just before an announcement of plunging profits, while the pharmaceutical company Elf Sanofi paid over the market rate for the 44% of the capital held by Saint Laurent and Bergé before purchasing the group in 1993. Sanofi sold it on to Gucci in 1999, still with the vestigial involvement of Saint Laurent and Bergé, who did not leave as president until 2002.
While together, the couple created museum-like apartments in Paris and New York, a Normandy chateau with every room named after a Proust character, a villa and the glorious Jardin Marjorelle in Marrakesh. They split personally in 1976, when Saint Laurent’s perma-depression veered towards drink, drugs, and seclusion, although Bergé, patient with Saint Laurent despite being a prowling, growling panther, claws out, towards everyone else, kept his faith as well as the business going. They lunched daily, and Bergé, who respected Saint Laurent’s creativity, if not his metier (“a man of exceptional intelligence practising the trade of an imbecile” was his description) used his arts network to promote exhibitions of Saint Laurent. Showcasing a living designer was a novelty, and Bergé went wide with it, to museums in Beijing, Moscow and New York.
Bergé never ceased buzzing around the arts, owning the Théâtre de l’Athénée-Louis Jouvet, with weekly recitals by the best voices in town. As a lifelong socialist, albeit of the “caviar left”, supporting François Mitterrand, he refused a Mitterand cabinet post but accepted the presidency of the Paris Opera, in charge of the new Bastille Opera House, Palais Garnier and Salle Favart, from 1989 to 1994. There he vented even more ferocious temperament than he had in fashion, sacking musical director Daniel Barenboim for “too little work for too much reward”, and disputing with ballet director Rudolf Nureyev over his international schedule. Leading conductors refused to enter the Bastille, senior staff escaped it; the theatres were in turmoil. Bergé delivered far fewer productions than promised, and most were failures.
Mitterrand, a close friend of Bergé, appointed him an officer of the National Order of Merit (1987) and he was later appointed a grand officer of the Légion d’Honneur (2015). In 2010 he was one of the new investors who bought a controlling stake in the newspaper Le Monde.
Bergé went through a ceremony with Saint Laurent to become legal civil partners shortly before the designer died in 2008, and after disposed of their art collections, reserving only Jardin Marjorelle as their joint memorial, with a Saint Laurent museum.
This year Bergé married his long-term partner, the Jardin’s director Madison Cox, who survives him.
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Does fashion care about disabled people and the purple pound?
Since childhood, fashion has always given me joy. It has allowed me to present myself to the world as the person I am and strive to be, irrespective of the physical limitations of my disability. But in the five years since severe illness forced me to use a mobility scooter to get around, online retailers have become my primary access to new trends, owing to poor accessibility on my local high street. Recently, I heard about a disability charity’s campaign to improve shop access and wondered whether navigating luxury fashion stores on four wheels would be any less challenging. It seemed logical that designer labels, which often shell out millions to create opulent showrooms, would invest in basic equipment for access. So I ventured into Mayfair – one of London’s most expensive areas to shop – to explore the AW17 collections up close.
From the moment I rode out on to New Bond Street, I was beset by obstacles. It started with attempting to enter a designer store with a stepped entrance, then performing a red-faced U-turn outside because sales staff couldn’t provide a ramp. As I continued around Mayfair, I discovered boutique after boutique with stepped entrances and no access ramps. Often staff delivered this information with an expression of bewilderment as to why anyone would require one, and nearly half of the shops I visited said they didn’t have lifts to access upper floors.
Outside one store, however, I experienced the other extreme. A trio of sales staff emerged to offer assistance, WhatsApp numbers (“should you need any help in the future”) and a ramp, ceremoniously placed to help me up the vertiginous steps.
Instead of having the freedom to choose where I shopped, these vastly different attitudes predetermined which labels I can and cannot wear.
In July, We Are Purple began its campaign, Help Me Spend My Money, to raise awareness of the obstacles facing disabled shoppers and promote disability awareness training for retail staff. Purple’s Mark Flint explains that the initiative aims to “transform thinking” and “illustrate that becoming disability-friendly is not just morally right, but makes complete business sense”. I ask whether the campaign has had any interest from luxury fashion retailers. Flint stresses that it remains in its early stages and they are “having conversations” with a number of brands. It’s not exactly a resounding yes.
Britain’s 11.9 million disabled people are acknowledged to have a spending power of £80bn. Known as the purple pound, it represents the largest untapped consumer market. A recent study by the Extra Costs Commission has found that 75% of disabled customers have left a shop because of poor service or access, and that British companies risk losing £420m a week in sales. These challenges are not unique to luxury shopping, and are a daily occurrence on high streets and in shopping centres across the country. “Recently, I was trying to help my little sister buy a dress for a dance,” says Quin, a 19-year-old wheelchair user from Canterbury, “but all the shops had items too close together for me to navigate. I was forced to sit by the door and watch as my sister walked around. It seems as though there’s an attitude that disabled people would never come in. We need and want things just the same as abled people.”
Angie, a 39-year-old with epilepsy and arthritis from Warwickshire, says that sales assistants are rude and unaccommodating towards her when she struggles to move around the shop floor on crutches. “It’s often an anxious experience, as you don’t know how you will be treated by shop staff, and, when people tend to be negative rather than helpful, it’s easier not to go out and shop online [instead]”.
Lily, a 22-year-old from south-east England, doesn’t use any aids such as a wheelchair, so it’s not always clear she has a disability. “When I’m at the till and struggling to get money out because my left hand doesn’t work as well as my right, I feel embarrassed. I usually apologise even if I know I shouldn’t.” She now looks at every shop she visits to check it has adequate provision for disabled customers. If not, she will email the company or speak to them on social media.
My impossible shopping trip underlined the radical disconnect between the real-life experiences of disabled shoppers and the fashion industry’s very visible fascination with inclusion. Diversity is the hashtag du jour in fashion circles, with many designers talking fluently about their respect for a breadth of cultures and life experiences, and using models who do not conform to the tall, slim, white, cisgender, able-bodied archetype.
Edward Enninful, British Vogue’s new editor, has expressed frustration with the industry’s reluctance to create sustainable changes in reflecting the diverse identities of its consumers. His principles on ethnic diversity – “you put one model in a show or in an ad campaign, that doesn’t solve the problem”– also apply to disability representation. Although some designers have embraced disability models – most notably Alexander McQueen in the late 90s – the fact remains that, when disabled customers are prohibited from shopping, due to stairs, lack of seating or insufficient sales support, it is hard not to draw the conclusion that the catwalk trend for disabled models is nothing more than that. It is the metaphorical millennial pink, soon to be consigned to the back of our closets.
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Debate surrounding the use of disabled models was reignited at Teatum Jones’s London fashion week show earlier this year, as Kelly Knox emerged on to the catwalk in a rust-hued dress knotted at the elbow to silhouette her amputated lower arm. The label’s AW17 collection presented disability models as emblems of a backlash against ideas of the perfect form: “Why do we look at ourselves in the mirror and see ugly instead of valuable? What are you looking at?” bellowed the disabled motivational speaker Nick Vujičić on the soundtrack. After reading reports describing the show as a “spectacle” and “attention-grabbing”, I approached Catherine Teatum and Rob Jones to find out whether their interest in the disabled body ran deeper than aesthetics, and found both to have a positive understanding of the practical issues affecting disabled shoppers.
In a joint statement, they say that retail accessibility should be a democratic experience: “Imagine telling a group of people that they were not allowed into your retail space because you hadn’t thought it through in the design stage? Or because you simply forgot about them or didn’t consider their spending power? You’d feel pretty awful, and so would they.” They observed that, although many designers strategically position themselves as radical: “when a fashion audience is actually faced with the reality of physical difference, there is sometimes tendency to feel uncomfortable”.While the designers don’t believe luxury brands are actively disengaging disabled shoppers, they agree that more can be done and see e-commerce as having a wealth of applications for the disabled and able bodied alike: “This should be a conversation about inclusivity, after all.”
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New York’s finest: four up-and-coming designers one buyer wants you to watch
New kids on the block.
Reporting from New York Fashion Week’s front row, Ilkin Kurt, buyer for Sydney boutique East 43, shares her thoughts on the next generation of New York-based designers making waves. In short, these are the next big things so take notes.
Ph5
“Ph5 is a great contemporary womenswear label which offers innovative knit and knit-woven garments. It is colourful, cool and playful. Beautiful solid fine quality knits with affordable prices. Each garment is a contemporary art piece. I believe the brand's surprisingly good price point and epic quality could make it the next fashionista’s it label.”Orseund Iris
“This brand is something in between nostalgia and modern world. Eclectic and non-seasonal pieces with vintage touches. They haven’t had any presentation/show yet, but it feels like we will be seeing this brand around a lot more.”Matthew Adams Dolan
“Australian-American designer, known for his signature denim pieces (as worn by Rihanna lately), has [been] on my radar since his debut SS16 collection. I love his exaggerated tailoring. The way that he uses denim as a fabric is exquisite and well crafted. Also, I have to say his Margiela-esque proportions have a new attitude than what we have been seeing.”Nikki Chasin
“Nikki’s collections are playful and fun. She takes casualwear to the next level with details. There is always an underlined resort mood. It is a new take for Maryam Nassir Zadeh phenomena. I really appreciate how she develops unique weaves and patterns.”
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Malfunction of the Melania-bot: was the first lady’s Missoni dress an act of rebellion?
You raise a beady-eyed point, Marina. I, too, was taken aback by Melania’s recent choice of a long, loose, knitted Missoni dress for her trip to Camp David, and if you’re asking why then a clue is in the description. It was a beautiful dress, no question, but it didn’t exactly fit in with Melania’s usual glamazon-fembot-princess perfect style. You can imagine Donald Trump looking at it and asking his wife why she was wearing a table cloth, because it dared to hang loosely.
I imagine the president’s reactions to his wife’s clothes are the inverse of my father’s to mine. I’ll walk in wearing a new dress and he’ll ask if I forgot to put on a skirt with my nice new top. Trump, by contrast, likes clothes that scream “I look like something the girlfriend of a villain in a 1980s movie would wear”, and that means solid coloured, body fitted, showing a lot of leg and quite possibly designed by Isaac Mizrahi. They need to be clothes that are visibly expensive, because that, in Trump’s mind, then insinuates the lady wearing them lives with a big man who makes a lot of money and that’s super important, because a man who has lots of money is guaranteed to be extremely smart and have an enormous penis and that’s a scientific fact. Think Jerry Hall’s wardrobe in Tim Burton’s first Batman movie and you pretty much have Trump’s ideal wardrobe for his ladies. (Incidentally, by “ladies” I obviously mean the various wives he has had over the decades and also, just as obviously but a bit more creepily, his eldest daughter.)
Now, the knitted Missoni dress definitely doesn’t fit the above brief. Yes, it cost at least £1,500 but it is a fashion dress, and Trump’s taste is the opposite of fashion, or, at least, fashion as it is now. He loved fashion in the 1980s, when it was all about ostentation and shoulder pads, and the coolest accessory you could wear with your Christian Lacroix gown was its price tag. But all this new-fangled modern tricksy subtle understatement jazz? No siree, Bob. Put it this way, he would NOT be happy if Melania came home with a giant shopping bag from Vetements, ironic fashion meta referencing not really being his scene. As for a knitted dress, well. You can imagine Trump looking at it and making like the great Joan Cusack in Working Girl: “Six thousand dollars? It’s not even leather!” So to me, that Missoni dress was the sartorial version of Melania slapping her husband’s hand away, or refusing to hold his hand, or whatever minuscule acts of rebellion many of us have longed to see from the woman once known as Melanija Knavs.
But, as is often the case with Melania, this act of rebellion was quickly followed by an act of conformity so blithe and lacking in self-awareness it can only be described as Trumpian. A mere two days after Missonigate, Melania strode on into heelgate, when she was photographed flying off to Houston, which seemed to have been washed out into the Gulf of Mexico, in the highest heels ever worn on feet that weren’t actually made out of Barbie plastic. Commentators snorted, but there was something almost admirable in her lack of pretence. I mean, come on, did anyone really think that blow dry was going out into the storm, let alone wading through bacteria-infested water, to help the little people who now help to pay for her lifestyle? Please.
Adorably, she later released a statement in response to the criticism of her shoes: “I want to be able to offer my help and support in the most productive way possible, not through just words but also action.” Hard to know what is the most hilarious part of this statement, the suggestion that Melania ever offers any words, ever, or that she was showing she was ready for “action” in her stilettos. In Melania’s defence, she did change into (pristine white) trainers on the plane ride over but, really, look at the state of this situation: as she was on her way ostensibly to visit people whose lives have been irrevocably destroyed, she used her departure as a fashion moment, posing for photographers in her puffa jacket and stilettos. And then, just to make sure the point was made, she did it again last week. Oh, and by the way, those ready-for-action trainers? They were accessorised with a baseball cap, reading Flotus, matching her husband’s Potus cap, both of which are available to buy on the Trump website. Because nothing says “serving the country” when you use a visit to a disaster zone as an advertising opportunity.
So in short, Marina, perhaps the Melaniabot had a minor malfunction and was swiftly fixed by those technological geniuses, Trump and his Lurch-like sons. Or maybe it was a deliberate teeny tiny act of rebellion on her part only for her to recant quickly and get back on the Trump train. So whatever nascent resistance there was, it is, as yet, remaining very nascent. Sit back down, Trump men. The flash of insurgency has been successfully snuffed out.
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Chainmail, lemons and the Memphis Group: an introduction to autumn/winter 2017 fashion
All smiles at Oscar de la Renta
Oscar de la Renta was one of fashion’s best-loved talents. As such, he’s a big act to follow, but new creative directors Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia are off to an impressive start with their A/W 17 debut of party dresses and strappy sandals.
The couple have already made their name with Monse, launched in 2015. The label’s deconstructed shirts and dresses were an instant hit, worn by Sarah Jesssica Parker and spotted on Lady Gaga and Amal Clooney. “We take a fabric that everyone is comfortable with and unhinge it,” Garcia explains. “If our clients look like they’ve taken more than five minutes to get dressed, we’ve failed.”
If you’re wondering why two upstart creatives have been given top jobs at one of New York’s most establishment labels, well, it’s because the pair learned their trade at Oscar’s knee, Garcia as senior designer, Kim as studio director. “Oscar was always pushing us to see the newest, youngest ideas,” Kim says, “to move forward but keep it very Oscar.” It sounds as if his legacy is in safe hands.
Art School and the new nonbinary
Wo/menswear Art School’s all-singing, all-dancing debut at London fashion week men’s in January prompted many goofy grins. It’s hard, after all, not to crack a smile seeing joyful dancers – male and female – throwing shapes in clothes designed for the dancefloor: sparkly jackets, satin slipdresses and deep red velvet.
This is the work of Eden Loweth and Tom Barratt, 23 and 22, the couple who founded Art School after graduating in menswear and art criticism respectively last year. “We started seeing each other just as I was doing my final collection. It became super-shared,” Loweth says. “We wanted to do something that represents how people in our generation live and brings the excitement back into fashion.”
For their June show, friends modelled a collection that worked as a shared wardrobe. It involved men in ballgowns, women in suits, in what the press release called “the unfolding narrative of nonbinary paradise to be indulged in”.
For Art School, nonbinary is key. “Gender is a construct. We know that,” Barratt says. He describes his own style as “like a teenage pop star”, while “Eden dresses like Cate Blanchett in Carol”. “It’s about creating who you are,” he says. At Art School, anything goes.
Les Girls Les Boys get intimate
Time was when mere mention of lingerie brand Agent Provocateur would conjure images of panicked partners on Valentine’s Day. It was shorthand for the saucy sexiness of the 90s.
2017’s sexy is a different ballgame – and Serena Rees, who co-founded Agent Provocateur in 1994, is back with a very different offering. Les Girls Les Boys is a “bed to street” range of “shareable, swapable pieces” for those who like to roll out of the former straight on to the latter. The aesthetic is pared back, with a slouch: “Les Girls Les Boys feels intimate,” Rees says, “without the focus being on ‘intimates’.”
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The hit list: 10 things to have on your fashion radar this month
The book
Fashion’s favourite photographic duo Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott celebrate 20 years of their prolific professional partnership in a collector’s edition tome that captures the dizzying depth of their portfolio, from campaigns for Fendi and Gucci to portraits of Kate Moss, Lady Gaga and Madonna. Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, £450 (taschen.com)
The film
Shoe godfather Manolo Blahnik stars in director Michael Roberts’ well-heeled bio-epic, Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards. With cameos from Anna Wintour and Rihanna, the documentary premieres during LFW. Step into Blahnik’s shoes quite literally — specifically his re-issued Maysale kitten mules (first created for Marge Simpson for a 1991 episode) — and book a cinema seat near you. Out 29 September.
The collaboration
Get ready for Uniqlo x JW Anderson’s much-awaited collaboration, which drops in store on 19 September. ‘I wanted to try and take the essence of what we know as iconography in British culture and do something which was democratic,’ explains Anderson of his patriotic collection that includes quilted tartan puffers and classic trenches. As a long-term admirer of the brand, he adds of the project, ‘It was a no-brainer for me.’
The Fabric
High-gloss, patent finishes are not just limited to outerwear for AW17. Spray-and-wipe surfaces are just asking to be teamed with oversized knitwear or pretty blouses for daytime.
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Maggie Gyllenhaal has no idea where Taylor Swift's missing scarf is
Maggie Gyllenhaal, sister to Jake Gyllanhaal, has no idea where Taylor Swift’s scarf is, okay?
Appearing on an episode of Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live, a clever Swift fan took up the opportunity to do some investigating into Taylor Swift’s lyrics. On the song All Too Well, Swift sings about leaving a scarf behind at her boyfriend's sister's house, with everyone believing the lyrics are about her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal.
The 2011 song, off the album Red, goes like this: “I walked through the door with you, the air was cold but something about it felt like home somehow. And I left my scarf there at your sister's house.”
So is the scarf real? If so, where is it?
“Is it true that Taylor Swift left her scarf at your house once?” Andy Cohen quizzes the 39-year-old actress.
“You know, I never understood why everybody asked me about this scarf. What is this?”
Cohen explains: “She said in a song, she was singing in the song All Too Well, about your brother, ‘I left your scarf at your sister’s place.’”
“Huh. I am in the dark about the scarf,” Gyllenhaal says, adding, “It’s totally possible. I don’t know.”
“But everyone asks.. I have been asked this before. I’ve been like, ‘What are you talking about?’”
So there you go everyone, Maggie doesn’t know, but she did agree to start looking.
“I feel like you need to look for the scarf!” Cohen adds. “And then put it on eBay!”
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