Happy Friday Barbie girls! As if our weekends weren’t Barbie-pilled enough, you’ll find us in Selfridges this weekend, getting a full “life in plastic, it’s fantastic”-makeover in all the doll-inspired wardrobe, beauty and cultural offerings filling the legendary department store this weekend. If however, you’re looking for a palette cleanser from the most anticipated movie of the year, we’ve got you covered on that front too: from a new Alexander McQueen collection and a journal supported by Bottega Veneta, to hot campaigns from Loewe, Loro Piana and Miu Miu. We’ve also got news of some more must-see events, including the surprising location of Chanel’s next Metiers d’art show, a MoMA exhibition curated by the amazing Grace Wales Bonner and a boundary-pushing art-exhibition from Hood By Air founder Shayne Oliver. Finally, we also look back, with a tribute to one of fashion’s most iconic muses: Jane Birkin. Here’s what’s in fashion.
Chanel heads for Manchester for its next Métiers d’art show
Paris, New York, Tokyo, Dakar… Manchester? Yes, this week, the fashion world was admittedly a little shook by the announcement of Chanel’s choice for its forthcoming Metiers d’Art show, with Paris’ proudest house choosing the UK’s northern powerhouse as its next stop in December. Granted, it’s not the first time that the house has brought the travelling show series to our rainy isles, with the house showing in Edinburgh back in 2012. It’s also a decision that makes perfect sense in light of Manchester’s history as an epicentre for Britain’s clothes and textile industries, as well as its status as one of the country’s – nay, the world’s – foremost cultural fonts, particularly when it comes to music and nightlife. As such, we’re will to bet that the afterparty for this will be a biggun’! The show also rounds out what is big year for Chanel’s presence in the UK, following on from the September opening of the hotly anticipated exhibition, Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto, at London’s V&A. Even if Britain may not feel all that great right now, praise be to Chanel for these needed reminders that, at heart, it is. MS

Grace Wales Bonner is curating a MoMA exhibition
Since the early days of her career, Grace Wales Bonner has been a designer with a deeply rooted relationship with the art world. It’s always been evident in her approach to the clothes she creates for her namesake brand – which often feels more like the product of a research-led, curatorial endeavour than a commercially-minded fashion enterprise – and has led her to curate shows at some of the world’s most prestigious art institutions, like London’s Serpentine Gallery and Gagosian. This week, though, Grace’s art world clout boomed to hard-to-top proportions with the announcement that she’ll be curating a show at MoMA, the New York-based mother of all contemporary art museums, opening in November. Comprising approximately 50 works from the museum’s unparalleled collection, Spirit Movers will “will gather artworks with a particular focus on Black cultural and aesthetic practices inspired by the styles, experiences, forms, and sounds of the African diaspora,” according to a release, including works by artists such as Moustapha Dimé, Agnes Martin, Man Ray, Betye Saar, and David Hammons.
Accompanying the exhibition will be an artist book – Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm—Visions of Sound and Spirit. A rich assemblage of pictures, poems, musical scores and performance documentation, it amounts to “an archive of soulful expression”, Grace says, juxtaposing imagery with fragments of writings by Black authors including Langston Hughes, Ishmael Reed and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. “It is an immense honour to engage with the artists and works collected in the MoMA collection, and I wish to extend my deepest thanks to the museum for allowing me the space to create so freely,” Grace says. “I hope the exhibition and associated publication resound with the spirit of the contributing artists and continue to conjure new dreams and new visions.” MS



Alexander McQueen does curvy, cinched menswear for SS24
Sarah Burton’s most recent menswear collections for Alexander McQueen have proposed stripped-back explorations of the human form, juxtaposing softy sculpted silhouettes and cuts with traditional menswear tailoring motifs and hardy materials – denims, leathers, neoprenes and wools. Though this has typically been achieved through cutouts and crops, SS24 sees the designer mould pieces to the body, and round out edges. Shoulders on black tailored wool coats and jackets are rounded, creating a ballooning upper arm. Shirts too have the edges softened with drooped shoulders on a crisp white and sleeveless offering and on a pink offering with utility detailing and matching wide-leg trousers. Waists are cinched with leather belts and cumberbands, and counterposed by wide-leg fits and peplums that blossom from waistcoats, descending into traditional suit tails.
The abstracted floral motifs seen in previous McQueen menswear collections recur in new finishes, with ivory wool jumpers imbued with black Rorschach-esque blots, and crocheted vests featuring patchworks of 3D flowers, inspired by the chiaroscuro detailing of Dutch Old Master paintings. Flowers also sprout along the borders of trench coats and double-breasted two-piece suiting, with botanicals as a carryover reference from the brand’s recent collections, though here these motifs were more detailed and less abstracted than previously seen. Rounding out the collection are a suite of suits, capes and tight-fitting vests with a decadent metallic sheen, as if lightly dusted with gold flakes, topped off by an intricate, armour-like harness, its violent associations tempered by its construction from an entanglement of gold ropes and jewelled buckles. TG



Loro Piana’s AW23 campaign gets intimate
For its AW23 campaign, Loro Piana – the OG purveyor of quiet luxury – takes us up close and personal with models Selena Forrest, Henry Kitcher, Awar Odhiang and Raquel Zimmerman in a series of photos and films by Glen Luchford. As we watch them all consult on redecorating their warm living space, assembling colourful flower arrangements and dancing about the room, the group – clad in sumptuous cashmere knits, pillowy quilted overcoats and gowns bearing botanical motifs – instantly become the gang of besties we want to be a part of, as well as the perfect embodiment of the sentimental, joyful and creative energy of the collection’s heart. TG

Bottega Veneta goes bookish with a new publication
As fashion houses go, there are few quite as bookish as Bottega Veneta, as its recent support for a plethora of printed projects well proves. The latest addition to the brand’s rapidly expanding library is Magma, a new, boundary-pushing artistic journal. An attempt to rive the 20th century tradition of the great revues d’art – think Georges Bataille’s Documents or the early issues of Andy Warhol’s Interview – the publication, founded and edited by Paul Olivennes, is a testament to their status as forums for artistic expression – a “laboratories where artists and writers could collaborate and co-create,” a release reads.
“These magazines offered direct access to artistic creation. They were the place for the avant-garde, both artistic and literary.” Paul says. “I wanted to revive this format, which has now disappeared, in all its aesthetic, graphic, and intellectual sophistication. I also wanted to put artists and writers back centre stage and to recreate a dialogue between them by weaving connections between their work,” focussing on the publication of work either previously unpublished, or created exclusively for the journal. And there are some pretty damn fab works among them. In its inaugural issue, readers will discover a 1976 text by nouvelle vague auteur Agnès Varda on the photography of Claude Nori, a poem by Martinican philosopher, author and critic Edouard Glissant, and even a piece of writing about a Sicilian Baroque palazzo by Johannes Wolfgang Goethe. Bookworm heaven indeed. MS

Shayne Oliver’s new exhibition makes shopping an art form
In huge news for fans of Shayne Oliver, the esteemed Hood By Air founder and all-around figure of fashion lore has made a bold return, announcing the opening of new exhibition at Schinkel Pavillion in Berlin. Titled The Mall of Anonymous, the “show of unprecedented complexity”, as a release puts it, sees the designer, musician and artist join forces with curators Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen to transform the space into a two-and-a-half-store walk-in sculpture, echoing a quintessentially North American mall. Granted, rather than the air of tranquilised suburbia that thoughts of malls typically conjure, the installation will offer an insight into “the labyrinthic headspace” in which Shayne’s ideas are born. “Both functional and nightmare-ish,” the exhibition grapples with the notion that personal experience and trauma are essential, galvanising forces in any worthwhile creative process, featuring artworks like a sculpture of a mother and child split in half, which speaks to Shayne’s simultaneous struggle and embrace of his upbringing and background, as well as a three-headed, acid-gree chihuahua that elicits memories of Cerberus the watchdog of the Greek underworld, kawaii culture, 90s techno party flyers and Paris Hilton’s late pooch.
And what about the fashion, you ask? Well, each of the show’s three (well, two-and-a-half) main components offers an insight into one of the three brands that Shayne is set to launch in March 2024 under the banner of the Shayne Oliver Group. Shayne Oliver (the brand, this is) will operate as the fledgling conglomerate’s flagship luxury label, while Anonymous Club will operate on a collaborative, project basis. Rounding out the roster is As Seen by Shayne Oliver (ASSO), which will specialise in elevated, perverted basics. MS



World’s hottest brand Loewe drops an even hotter campaign
Living up to their new title as the hottest brand (according to Lyst’s Index for the second quarter of 2023) Loewe have dropped a sultry new campaign for their AW23 menswear collection featuring two of the hottest icons around. Grammy-nominated R&B artist Omar Apollo dons a variety of whimsical, skin-revealing looks – grey marl long johns; an oversized boxy lilac cardi with tiny boxer-esque silk shorts, and those weird shoe pant boots; and then a raw fabric trench coat, his bare beneath, with jeans – as he poses with the Spanish house’s iconic puzzle bag. Then there’s bearded Fifty Shades actor Jamie Dornan, looking wintery and dreamy playing with a flower in straight-fit denims, dark tees and oversized wool coats. Whether fun, skimpy and playful or subdued, warm and comforting, Jonathan Anderson knows how to dress the men of our dreams. TG
A tribute to Jane Birkin
Last weekend, the news of Jane Birkin’s passing plunged the fashion community into mourning. Sure, she was the woman whose chance 1984 encounter with the Hermès CEO of the time proffered the most iconic handbag of all time, but beyond that she was a testament to the power of dressing for one’s self – to the power of a meticulously cultivated, fiercely independent sense of style. Surging to prominence in the late 60s after a starring role in Slogan alongside Serge Gainsbourg – with whom she then embarked on a storied decade-long personal and professional relationship – the Anglo-French actress was an original embodiment of the insouciant, shaggy-haired look that’s since been repackaged and exported worldwide as ‘French girl style’. As our chronicle of her most iconic looks attests, she was a veritable fashion pioneer – long before the era of big-name stylists and image architects – pulling off knitted naked dresses, Paco Rabanne chainmail slips and oversized Agnès B. men’s shirts with irreverence and aplomb. In a 2018 CBS interview, she mused that, once she’d passed the main thing she’d be remembered for would be the Hermès bag that carries her name. Now that she has, though, it’s clear that her legacy amounts to so much more than that. MS



Selfridges goes barbiecore
Come on Barbie, let’s go Selfridges! To celebrate the launch of the most highly anticipated movie of the year (maybe, even ever!), the London luxury emporium has been Barbiefied. As you walk along its Oxford Street storefront, you’ll spot looks worn by Barbie and Ken in the movie (yes, that white 70s jumpsuit and sequinned streamer-print playsuit have touched the bodies of Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie) from the disco and wardrobe scenes. The magic continues inside, though, with a whole Barbie world awaiting in the Barbie Dream Wardrobe Rental, where you can peruse and borrow wearable pieces worn by the doll in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, spanning her various jobs from girlboss She-E-O to her balletcore, fairytale era, all curated by stylist Theo White. There’s also the opportunity to book Barbie-inspired hair and nail services, while the beauty looks by Lisa Eldridge (who did the makeup for Dua Lipa’s music video for her song on the soundtrack) will be on display. Of course, in the cinema there will be back-to-back screenings of the movie too, meaning you can watch Barbie again and again and again and again. Oppenheimer who? Check it all out at Selfridges London now! TG
Emma Corrin, Mia Goth and Ethel Cain serve sexy commuter for Miu Miu’s new campaign
One of the best AW23 show moments came from Miu Miu, who sent actors Emma Corrin and Mia Goth, alt pop girl Ethel Cain and all-around icons Amelia Gray and Zaya Wade down the runway in frazzled hair-dos and dishevelled, half-dressed work attire that continued Miuccia Prada’s sensual reimagining of uniforms. Now, the knock-out collection’s campaign has dropped, casting the same stars in a grey, office-like, Backrooms-esque building. There, they wear buttoned up, concealing cardis alongside sheer, polka dot pencil skirts; glittering briefs paired with a turtleneck to hide the mistakes of the night before; nerdy reading glasses and oversized hoodies, zipped up to conceal the lack of bottoms on. It’s a campaign that reminds us of what we thought when we saw the collection on the runway earlier this year: that we want everything! TG