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    Critics Choice Awards 2025’s Unforgettable Looks: Ariana Grande, Demi Moore, and More

    The question of what celebrities will wear to an awards show always looms large before any ceremony. But it took on new significance ahead of the 30th Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif., on Friday: After postponing the event twice because of the Los Angeles wildfires, organizers announced that a red-carpet preshow would not be part of the televised broadcast.How might that decision influence the fashion choices of the television and movie stars in attendance? Would they be riskier? More relaxed?As people started arriving, it soon became clear that absence of TV cameras on the carpet hadn’t stopped most from taking big style swings. For myriad reasons — most of them good — these 14 looks were among the most memorable from the Critics Choice Awards.Nicole Kidman: Most Humphrey Bogart!Daniel Cole/ReutersInstead of a gown, the “Lioness” and “Babygirl” actress went with a broad-shouldered Saint Laurent suit jacket, high-waist pants and a polka-dot tie, an ensemble that evoked the men’s wear of Old Hollywood.Ariana Grande: Most Jellyfish!Allison Dinner/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Isak Andic, Founder of Mango Fashion Chain, Dies at 71

    Mr. Andic got his start by selling T-shirts in Barcelona in the mid-1980s. He died in a fall during a hike.Isak Andic, who built the fashion brand Mango from a Spanish storefront into a global giant with more than 2,000 stores on five continents, died in a fall while hiking near Barcelona on Saturday. He was 71.The death was announced by Toni Ruiz, the chief executive of Mango. The cause was confirmed by Glòria Torrent Caldas, a spokeswoman for the company.Mr. Andic, bespectacled and seen as relatively reclusive, started Mango in the mid-1980s by selling T-shirts in Barcelona. Over four decades, Mango grew into one of Spain’s leading international retailers, known for its creative, eclectic and ever-changing selection of affordable women’s wear.Mr. Andic, who held the title of nonexecutive chairman at Mango, had a net worth of roughly $4.5 billion at the time of his death, according to Forbes magazine.Mr. Ruiz said in a statement that Mr. Andic had dedicated his life to Mango, displaying “strategic vision” and “inspiring leadership.”“His legacy reflects the achievements of a business project marked by success and also by his human quality,” Mr. Ruiz said in the statement.Mango expanded beyond Spain in 1992 and opened its first U.S. location, in Los Angeles, in 2006. By 2008, it had launched a menswear line and opened an 8,000-square-foot store in the SoHo section of Manhattan. In 2011, it held its first fashion show outside Spain.Mango’s success, in part based on a nimble approach that involved frequently replacing its merchandise, led to its growth in more than 100 markets. Over the years, it has received some scrutiny for safety lapses along its supply chain.This year, Mango expanded its footprint in the United States, opening locations for the first time in Pennsylvania and in Washington, D.C., according to the company’s website. The company, which competes with fast fashion chains such as the Swedish-based H&M and the Spanish-based Zara, plans to have 40 American stores at year’s end, up from 10 in 2022.Mr. Andic’s death prompted tributes from Spanish leaders, including the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who issued a statement praising Mr. Andic’s business acumen and offering condolences to his family.Isak Andic Ermay was born in 1953 in Istanbul. As a teenager, he moved with his family to Barcelona, and he worked in the wholesale and retail sectors before opening Mango.A full list of Mr. Andic’s survivors was not immediately available. But Jonathan Andic, his son, is an executive board member at Mango.Mr. Ruiz said in his statement that Mr. Andic’s death “leaves a huge void, but we are all, in some way, his legacy and the testimony of his achievements.“In these extremely difficult times,” Mr. Ruiz added, “we share the family’s pain as if it were our own.” More

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    The Ubiquity of ‘Wicked’ Shows How Commercial Needs are Consuming Culture

    Even before “Wicked” opened, the movie’s signature green and pink colors were turning up everywhere, from drinks topped with matcha foam at Starbucks to aisles lined with merch at Target. This cultural bludgeoning was, of course, orchestrated. Today, not even large marketing budgets can achieve such ubiquity without help.Attention has become fractured. Audiences, siloed in their social-media feeds and choose-your-own-adventure streaming sites, are ever harder to reach. Only by partnering up, like “Barbie” did by collaborating with 165 brands last year, can a promotional campaign become truly inescapable. “Wicked” went even bigger, teaming up with over 400 brands to ensure a saturation that would be, in the words of Universal Pictures’ chief marketing officer Michael Moses, “just short of obnoxious.”It’s just the latest example of how the culture industry has come to rely on collaborations. Brands pair up with other brands in endless permutations. Fashion companies and visual artists routinely partner, as in the case of Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami, whose landmark collaboration will soon relaunch. Around a third of Billboard’s Hot 100 songs involve a guest feature or collab (compared to under 10 percent a generation ago). At a time when culture feels stagnant, collaborations help artists and brands generate an air of originality without having to innovate.This frisson of newness has often been enough to capture media attention and entice consumers. But as commercial alliances have proliferated, their effect has diminished. Fatigue is setting in. “Wicked” participated in more than twice as many collaborations as “Barbie,” yet brought in only half its opening-weekend box-office take worldwide.Could it be that we’ve reached “peak collab?”Collaborations have become formulaic, fusing random elements from all corners of culture, until everything seems fungible: Baccarat and Hello Kitty, Louvre and “Joker: Folie à Deux,” N.H.L. and Lululemon, M&M’s and KateSpade. The ease with which such diverse offerings are lumped together only exacerbates the feeling of monotony and exhaustion. All culture is deployed in the same way, as if what distinguishes it — its history, form, industry or genre — couldn’t matter less. Collaborations appear increasingly desperate, more about profit than creative synergy or shared values. Louis Vuitton’s upcoming Murakami re-edition promises to be “a surefire sales smash,” as Highsnobiety put it, even if it’s also “a cash-conscious maneuver reflective of tumbling luxury revenues.”But the formula plays well to the algorithms that power social media and dictate what we see online. Designed to anticipate what we want, these algorithms favor content with a proven history — the safe and familiar over the experimental and untested. New content composed of pre-existing elements, like mash-ups of established artists and brands, hits the sweet spot. This preference has only amplified the incentives leading culture away from the lone visionary and toward joint authorship for decades. In hip-hop, guest features started as a means of creative exchange before proving their value as a commercial draw.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Pantone’s 2025 Color of the Year Is Mocha Mousse

    Is this shade of dusty brown a repudiation of “Brat” green?On Thursday, Pantone announced its 2025 color of the year: Mocha Mousse. Far softer than the “Brat” green that dominated 2024, the shade is a nougaty brown that reminded Styles staff members of everything from luxury knitwear to swamp water.Pantone’s trend prognosticators surveyed fashion and design to land on a color “infused with subtle elegance and earthy refinement,” Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said in a statement. But in an oversaturated, digital world, does Mocha Mousse stand a chance at defining 2025?Reporters and editors for the Styles desk sat down to debate. Let us know what you think in the comments.VANESSA FRIEDMAN: So, after Viva Magenta and Peach Fuzz … Mocha Mousse! This is the first time in the 25-year history of Pantone’s color of the year that they’ve chosen a shade of brown, which is kind of a big deal. I admit, my mind went immediately to comfort eating.ALEX VADUKUL: I also got warm and comfort-food vibes. I was getting 1990s java and internet cafe vibes.STELLA BUGBEE: My mind went to what happens after comfort eating.JEREMY ALLEN: Pantone’s official imagery tries to guide us in a more appetizing direction by showcasing a goblet of tantalizingly-whipped mousse. But my mind keeps pivoting to the ubiquitous swirled, smiling emoji that shares a similar tone.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Chanel Takes Its Métiers d’Art Show to China, for 1,100 Guests.

    The house goes all out for its V.I.C.s.What do you do if you are a fashion house possessed of the most coveted open designer job in the business, the subject of manic rumors and speculation, with the world watching every move you make for a hint of announcements to come?If you are Chanel, you hold the first mega-show of a European luxury brand in Hangzhou, China, invite about 1,100 guests, including Tilda Swinton, Lupita Nyong’o, Liu Wen and about 600 local V.I.C.s — very important clients — and get on with business as usual.Meaning, in this case, you offer a bit of glamorous outreach to a customer segment that, after years of explosive growth, has been very publicly slowing down, sending the fortunes of many global fashion brands dropping. Chanel, the second largest luxury brand in the world, with 2023 revenues of almost $20 billion, has not been immune.And if the V.I.C.s — which is to say, clients who spend at least $20,000, and possibly up to $500,000, a year with the company — won’t go to the brand, the brand will go to them.“To come to China after Covid was one of our top priorities,” said Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president for fashion. “We started seriously to plan it nine months ago. It’s the right time to focus on our Chinese customers.”After all, he acknowledged: “At the moment, we have less customers in our boutiques. We have less what they call one-timers. But we are still very powerful and very successful with our V.I.C.s. And what we are doing here is trying to create a unique experience and a bond.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Rihanna Steals the Fashion Awards

    And a dozen other looks that made news at Britain’s Met Gala of style.She wasn’t even nominated, and Rihanna still stole the show Monday night at the Fashion Awards in London.Arriving last, as has become her wont at events like the Met Gala and the Alaïa show, and there as a plus-one to support her partner, ASAP Rocky, who received the Cultural Innovator award, the artist and Fenty mogul made her entrance in a turquoise wrap coat and faux fur hat from Christian Lacroix’s fall 2002 couture collection. With that she wore a black corset, black leather opera gloves and sheer black tights. The effect was kind of haute Flintstone meets the Folies Bergère.As for ASAP Rocky, he wore Bottega Veneta — a navy chore coat, matching pants and a red leather tie — and called the honor “surreal.” That was also an accurate description of the Royal Albert Hall, where the awards were held and where a crimson disco ball cast a new light on a familiar scene. But it was Rihanna’s enormous hat, jauntily tilted and visible from every vantage point, that summed up the point of the night: The business of fashion may be serious, but wearing it should be fun.Her look was as laudable as the actual winners, who included Alex Consani as model of the year, the first trans woman to receive the recognition; Grace Wales Bonner as British men’s wear designer of the year; Simone Rocha as British women’s wear designer; and Jonathan Anderson of Loewe and JW Anderson as designer of the year for the second year in a row.That choice wasn’t a big surprise, especially given Mr. Anderson’s moonlighting this year as the costume designer on the Luca Guadagnino films “Queer” and “Challengers” and the multiple wild rumors surrounding his future job prospects, but some of the other outfits were. Here’s what else caught our eye.More Method DressingNicola Coughlan of “Bridgerton” wore a Gaurav Gupta gown.Gareth Cattermole/Getty ImagesAnd Simone Ashley wore Prada.Scott A Garfitt/Invision, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Q&A With Dylan Bachelet of ‘Great British Baking Show’

    Dylan Bachelet lost in the finals of “The Great British Baking Show,” but he was a breakout star for his fashion as well as his baking. Now, he’s a professional chef.Dylan Bachelet, the 20-year-old finalist on “The Great British Baking Show,” generated plenty of buzz for the season with his good looks and his baking talent. He drew comparisons to all sorts of fictional characters: Captain Jack Sparrow of “Pirates of the Caribbean,” anime characters, cartoon cats. When asked about how his style choices were leading to those comparisons, Cristina Spiridakis, a Hollywood costume designer, said “Maybe he’s just a Gen Z kid with good style.”This turned out to be true, as Mr. Bachelet, self-described as “arty,” has always loved creative pursuits, including fashion and baking.“Baking is a creative outlet for me,” he said in a phone interview during a day off from his job as a chef de partie, or line cook, at The Five Fields, a Michelin-starred restaurant in London. “In the same way I have a vision of something I want to wear looking quite cool, I’ll have a dish in mind. I just try and work my way to that goal and learn from it.”He also discussed his fashion and his experiences on the show, the finale of which began streaming in the United States on Friday.This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.What were you were thinking about when getting dressed for the show: the weather, the baking, the cameras, the audience?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Bodhi, the ‘Menswear Dog,’ Dies at 15

    A Shiba Inu of uncommon sartorial panache, Bodhi modeled for Coach and was the subject of his own fashion lookbook.Bodhi, a Shiba Inu whose smartly tailored sport coats and luxurious knitwear helped make him the rare canine men’s wear influencer, died last Monday. He was 15.To hundreds of thousands of fashion enthusiasts who followed him on social media, Bodhi was known simply as the Menswear Dog. His owner, Yena Kim, announced his death Monday on Instagram, alongside an image of Bodhi wearing an arresting striped turtleneck.Bodhi was seldom underdressed. For more than a decade, he modeled herringbone overcoats and pageboy caps, buttery cashmere vests and tortoiseshell glasses. In each image, his dignified snout poked out from beneath caramel-colored fur; it was more typical to see him photographed in a bow tie rather than a dog collar.“Listen, he wore it well,” said Lawrence Schlossman, the co-host of the fashion podcast “Throwing Fits.” “It was always the right Oxford, the right knit tie, a beautiful raincoat with the collar popped.”Mr. Schlossman became familiar with the Menswear Dog account on Tumblr in the early 2010s, as the preppy look modeled by Bodhi gained traction in mainstream fashion. He once layered a raglan-sleeve coat over a white button-up and realized that he was inadvertently channeling the dapper Shiba Inu.“I can only imagine that wherever he is, he’s still getting ’fits off,” Mr. Schlossman said.

    View this post on Instagram A post shared by Menswear Dog (@mensweardog)
    We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More