Dress For Wedding

Models turn to social media to share their stories of sexual harassment within the fashion industry

Model Cameron Russell has joined in on the #MeToo campaign currently dominating social media to bring to light stories of model mistreatment within the fashion industry using her own hashtag #MyJobShouldNotIncludeAbuse.

Countless stories of coercion, harassment and assault have been shared by the model with male and females working within the industry (models and assistants, mostly) publicly and anonymously detailing their experiences with casting agents and photographers.

“Hearing about #harveyweinstein this week has sparked conversations about how widespread and how familiar his behaviour is,” Russell wrote on her Instagram feed before encouraging those in the fashion industry to share their stories with the #MyJobShouldNotIncludeAbuse hashtag “so the industry can see the size and scope of this problem”.

Other well-known models like Gemma Ward, Sara Sampaio (who shared her own story of coercion) and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley have shared the stories on their feeds to help spread the word and bring, they hope, an end to this abusive culture.

Russell’s efforts come as the LA Times published an investigation in Harvey Weinstein’s harassment of countless models, and publishing house Conde Nast banned any of their publications from working with photographer Terry Richardson.

“The voices breaking the silence are irreplaceable. I received too many stories to continue posting on my own, so I am passing on stories, with permission from those who shared, to be posted by friends and allies. Please follow and share your support as the anonymous stories of sexual harassment in our industry continue to be posted and brought to light,” Russell captioned her latest post, calling on her fellow models to continue to shed light on these harrowing and plentiful stories.

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Fast fashion is so 2016. Wynwood welcomes an eco-friendly boutique

Wywnood has the Antidote (yup, pun intentions) to fast fashion. Freshly minted Antidote boutique just opened in the art-loving ‘hood and the boutique is brimming with eco-conscious clothing brands.

“We are more than just a store; we are conscious fashion. Every piece is unique and has a distinct story from its inspiration to the way it was brought to life. We are excited to share our story,” Antidote Founder Sophie Zembra says.For example, the brand Lemlem, founded by Liya Kebede, creates Ethiopian hand-woven cotton scarves, women’s clothing and children’s dresses made by traditional artisans in Liya’s native Ethiopia. Her focus is singular and strong: to empower women through ethical fashion.

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Wear the Walk in Hackney Central offers blockbuster fashion to rent

Hackney-based company offers designer clothes for rent, empowering women to change up their wardrobes weekly without major financial sacrifice.

Wear the Walk, founded by Zoe Partridge, 26, launched in March 2017 and opened its first studio on Bohemia Place in Hackney Central in May.

Customers can either view clothes in an online catalogue or make an appointment to visit the studio to rent ethically produced clothes they can keep for as long as they want, up to two pieces a time. A subscription to this service costs £50 a month, a one off pay as you go rental is pricier.

The range currently includes around 45 emerging British designers.

Partridge worked as a press assistant and in styling for luxury fashion company Mulberry before deciding to start up her own business.

While Wear the Walk attracts lots of stylists, the target customer could be anyone, Partridge told the Citizen:

“I think our customer is a social kind of a girl, the girl that’s really striving to be the best she can be, someone that has an open-minded attitude and probably wants to consume a bit more responsibly.”

The style of many of the pieces on offer will, admittedly, not be everyone’s cup of tea. These are outfits that will stand out, but that, says Partridge, is the whole idea:

“I’ve got such a love for crazy, out there, show-stopper pieces and I hope we can give women the confidence to wear these types of things because they’re renting!”

Wear the Walk’s theory is that concerns about the price, the amount of wears and compatibility with the rest of one’s wardrobe become redundant if you’re renting.

“We want to change the way women feel. I am not disposable. I am remarkable. I am unique,” states the Wear the Walk website in bold feminist terms that resonate with the feel of the concept and the perky, confident look of the collection.

But there is a deeper political twang to the concept. As well as promoting sustainability, Partridge refers to the “limited access” to luxury goods, the “empowering flexibility” of renting and “patronising” dynamics of traditional fashion houses:

“I do think the traditional way in which the fashion industry, often men, dictates what we should wear that we should change up our wardrobe twice a year, and yet consume every week is very archaic,” Partridge says.

Men in boardrooms dictate we should wear a pencil skirt and high heels. Social media dictates the more skin we show, the more popular we are. We are constantly being forced to conform to these industry pressures, to fit in and be the same as everyone else. Wear the Walk was built to be different.”

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Guo Pei: the Chinese designer who made Rihanna's omelette dress

hinese designer Guo Pei had been creating couture for more than 30 years when Rihanna stepped on to the red carpet in an extraordinary yellow cape two years ago. Dubbed the omelette dress for its striking resemblance to brunch, it went viral and made the world notice Guo’s work.

The dress wasn’t designed for Rihanna. In fact, it had been sitting in Guo’s studio for three years when the singer’s team came across it after making inquiries into Chinese couture during the run up to the 2015 Met Gala, the theme of which was China: Through the Looking Glass.

Beijing-born Guo, who turned 50 recently, cut her teeth in fashion design following the Cultural Revolution. As Cathy Horyn explained in the New York Times, her career as a designer “began when there was no fashion in her country”. For the past 20 years, Guo has focused on high fashion, specialising in technical work that is grand in dimension and scale and as intricate as that of any Paris couture house. It’s no wonder that she has appeared at Paris couture week, last year becoming the first Chinese national to do so.

The now-famous Yellow Empress cape weighs 25kg, has a 16ft train, features over 50,000 hour’s worth of hand embroidery and took two years to make. The sheer weight of the dress meant that, when it was first shown, at a 2012 show in China, the model made it only halfway down the catwalk before the lights had to be turned off and the show stopped so that she could remove the cape and return backstageRead more at:bridesmaids dresses | bridesmaid dresses cheap

Having to Do This on Your Own Would Be Horrible”―7 Fashion Duos on the Rewards of Collaboration

In fashion, two is better than one. Look around: H&M is launching the collection Erdem Moralioglu designed for the fast fashion giant tomorrow in L.A. Earlier this year, we couldn’t stop talking about Louis Vuitton and Supreme. And don’t forget the 18 collabs Vetements did for its Spring 2017 show. Collaboration has become such a buzzword, in fact, Lou Stoppard of SHOWstudio has written a book on the subject; Fashion Together, published by Rizzoli, was released today.

Collaboration, Stoppard points out, isn’t a 21st-century phenomenon, but it has seemed to accelerate in the last decade, a fact that she chalks up to the industry’s fast pace. In the book, she quotes Rolf Snoeren of Viktor & Rolf, who said, “Having to do this on your own would be horrible. It’s a gift to be able to do it together.” As she watched the list of fashion partnerships grow, she started asking herself: “Who has the control? How is power balanced? Are there issues over ownership?” She came to the conclusion that collaborations “rely on some magic special ingredient. It’s a bit like romantic relationships really, it just works or it doesn’t.”

Stoppard’s first criteria for entry was that the relationship be unusual. “It would have been very easy to do a whole book just based on designers and their stylists or designers and their ‘muses,’ ” Stoppard says, “but I felt like that would have been too expected and maybe tired as a concept.” The second criteria was scoring in-person interviews with the collaborators together. That, she admits, was a bit like herding cats, and in the case of Shaun Leane and the late Alexander McQueen, it wasn’t even possible, but overall she was pleased by how much time her subjects gave her. “I think it’s a credit to how passionately everyone feels about the importance of collaboration.”

Fashion Together is a stuffed full of photographs, ephemera, and some of the most candid designer interviews you’ll read anywhere. “People were very willing to share their stories.”

Here, Stoppard shares some of the most potent fashion pairings in the book.

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