Happy fall 2022 girls! *clinks pumpkin spice lattes*. The AW22 campaigns are dropping like auburn leaves, with new ones from Lacoste and Jimmy Choo ushering in those autumnal vibes. For those in a reminiscent mood, we have some news to take you back to Copenhagen Fashion Week, or back even further with Maison Margiela’s new Memory Box. And in other news, there’s a visionary new mentorship programme for POC fashion business talents from the BFC, a new fun and sexy Puma collab and an inside look at the world of Dior jewellery. Here’s what’s in fashion.
The BFC has a new programme to support the next gen of POC fashion business talents
From the actors in our movies and the musicians receiving award nominations to the designers leading fashion houses and the models who wear their creations, when we talk about diversity and representation we often, perhaps naturally, focus on what can be publicly seen. All these industries have made strides in recent years to spotlight talents of colour, but behind the visible and high-profile jobs, there’s often a severe lack of representation in the roles that carry out the day-to-day duties that keep these industries afloat. Fashion is no exception, and it has been reported that only 5% of the the industry’s workforce is of a POC background. That’s why Jamie Gill, CEO of Roksanda and chair of the British Fashion Council’s Diversity Committee, has set up The Outsiders Perspective, an incubator offering POC the tools to thrive within the operational side of fashion brands, which includes areas such as sales, merchandising, operations, digital, HR, marketing and PR, legal and finance.
The project also has some big-name support with Burberry, Deloitte, The BFC, The Mayor of London, Karla Otto and Zalando all coming in to help mentor the future of the fashion business world. “Fashion is not seen as a viable career avenue by many ethnic minority communities due to several cultural and social mobility factors,” Jamie said in a statement, adding that “the reality is the fashion industry is made up of small to medium sized brands where there is no clear professional training ground for sourcing talent. I want to help change this”. Those looking to transition into a career within the established fashion business world should get in contact with the programme at theoutsidersperspective.org. TG
Maison Margiela invites you into its Memory Box
What are memories made of? It’s one of the many curious existential questions that neuroscientists dedicate their careers to deciphering. They are not, however, the latest people in white lab coats to propose an answer. No, that honour goes to the blouse blanche-clad gang over at Maison Margiela, whose REPLICA fragrance range bottles the essence of a realm of transient experiences. You know – lazy Sunday mornings, nights spent in smoky jazz clubs, days spent sailing at sea… Of course, picking up a bottle of the Paris-based maison’s stunning scents is one way to revive memories like these in moment of Proustian bliss, but if you find yourself in London before September 11th (or Manchester between September 28th and October 2nd), then be sure to stop by the custom-built REPLICA Memory Boxes that the brand has set up in the British cities. Filled with soundscapes, projections, mystery scent pods and a personalisation suite, the white-walled experiential space allows you to discover scents that evoke old memories – and to create new ones, too! MS
Icons only at Copenhagen Fashion Week!
By now, you’ll have no doubt read our round-up of everything that went down during Copenhagen Fashion Week a couple weeks back and thought: “Wow, could it get more iconic?” Well, it can – and it did! That’s thanks to Danish brand Icon Visions, who, rather than stage a catwalk presentation, decided to produce a whole damn fashion show – as in, a TV show! Hosted by some of the Nordic nation’s most emblematic visages – including the charismatic Berlin-based creative polymath and socialite Filip Berg – Icon TV offers a irreverent yet comprehensive overview of the week’s most exciting moments – by day and by night! Sporting the Scandinavian brand’s salacious new collection, its roving crew of hosts meet the schedule’s hottest names-to-know, the chicest attendees at the shows, and everyone else in between. Sounds stunning, right? Well, after checking out the episode above, head over to Icon TV’s YouTube channel for a hearty binge. MS
Venus Williams and her double are the faces of Lacoste FW22
Venus Williams as the face of Lacoste’s FW22 campaign isn’t all that surprising. Of course the tennis heritage brand is going to enlist one of the sport’s greatest champions of all time! What’s more surprising, however, is that starring alongside Venus in the campaign is… Venus Williams! Well, sorta. Saniyya Sidney, the actor who played the sporting legend in the movie King Richard, dons those famed beaded braids once more to join Venus for this campaign. The video sees the young talent running to present her elder counterpart with a tennis jacket before the two have a pose-off in their cute fits in front of the house that Venus and her sister Serena grew up in. It’s a fitting pairing given that Lacoste looked to transcend time and style with this new collection and looked to its most iconic pieces from its archive for its inspiration. TG
Puma taps Palomo Spain for a kitsch collaboration
From adidas x Gucci and Balenciaga to Nike x Martine Rose, sportswear brands have been making big moves into le monde de la mode of late. Further proof? Well, this week, Puma made their mark with a fresh collab, too. Rather than one of fashion’s blockbuster brands, however, the German sports titan demonstrated its IYKYK credentials by tapping a buzzy independent designer – Palomo Spain. Inspired by 1970s football stars and their glamorous – at times salacious, even! – off-pitch lives, the Spanish designer’s capsule revels in the retro and the kitsch. “My goal with this collaboration was to bring our over-the-top vibes over to Puma, while stepping out of my comfort zone by designing sports clothes,” he says. “That’s what led me to subtly reference Johan Cruyff, the ultimate 70’s football icon who is also the perfect embodiment of the Palomo Spain aesthetic in sport.” Spanning 15 styles, including bell bottom track pants, jacquard striped athletics jackets, terry-cloth tank tops and lace-up sneaker-inspired boots, the collection offers a gender-irreverent riposte to archetypal sportswear looks. Keep your eyes on the Puma and Palomo Spain websites for opportunities to cop! MS
Dior dazzles with its costume jewellery
Though the spotlight may typically fall on high jewellery – with its precious metals, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls – the effort invested in the creation of costume jewellery is often just as painstaking. To prove this point, the venerable Maison Dior has just released a new savoir-faire video, documenting the processes involved in bringing the D-Renaissance jewellery that featured in the house’s AW22 collection to life. Combining “the lightness of lace with the delicacy of resin beads and rhinestones’, reads a release from the house, the pieces on show are a testament to the unparalleled skillsets of Dior’s storied artisans. Even if what glitters here isn’t gold, it’s still pretty damn fine! MS
Kendall Jenner is a Jimmy Choo girl
Jimmy Choo has always been a big part of the pop cultural zeitgeist. Remember Carrie crying that she “lost her choo” in Sex and the City? Nicki Minaj rapping about copping multiple pairs in a number of songs? Hell, even queen bee Sharpay in High School Musical 2 was obsessed with them. Everyone knows it’s the shoe of choice for the main character fashion girlies, and so who better to front the brand’s FW22 campaign than supermodel, reality tv star and cucumber-cutting-extraordinaire Kendall Jenner. Chilling in her natural habitat (a private pool in LA) Kendall commands you to look at the candy pink and black and gold Dreece and Blake knee-high boots, the stunning Varenne Avenue Quad bag and the Diamond Light Maxi sneaker as she strikes unique, subversive poses. It’s giving goddess. It’s giving dom. It’s giving please step on us in your Jimmy Choos, queen! TG