Prepare yourself: the latest trailer for And Just Like That… season 2 is out and it’s displaying its whimsical costuming chaos for all to see.

Written and directed by Michael Patrick King, HBO’s buzzy Sex and the City reboot follows main characters Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) alongside new friends as they navigate life in their 50s. To much fan surprise, it turns out Samantha Jones will also be making a cameo in the upcoming season. On May 31, Variety reported that Kim Cattrall will reprise the role yet again for one scene in the finale, in which she’ll have a phone conversation with Carrie. (When filming, she reportedly didn’t see or speak with her co-workers.) A win nonetheless!

Despite some significant changes (like the absence of Samantha), the revival stays true to the aesthetic essentials of the original series. A hyper-romanticized portrayal of New York City? Check. Regular Sunday morning brunch dates? Check. Unapologetically off-kilter fashion? Check, check, check. And the wacky wardrobe is all thanks to costume designer duo Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago.

Season 2 will premiere on June 22, and in it, the famous trio will be reunited with season 1 newcomers, reportedly including Che (Sara Ramirez) Seema (Sarita Choudhury), Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) and Nya (Karen Pittman). If the street style photos are any indication, the new iteration is still honouring its nonsensical sartorial roots — and nodding to SATC’s most dramatic plot points. Enter: Aidan.

 

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That’s right, Carrie’s on-again-off-again beau, played by John Corbett, is coming back to insight even more internet debate and bewilderment. And from the looks of things, it’s more than just a brief cameo. On January 13 (a.k.a Friday the 13th), the series’ official Instagram account released a photo of the pair walking hand-in-hand (in the middle of the street!) so as to make a theatrical announcement of their romantic reunion. Since then, Corbett has been spotted on set at a restaurant with the ladies and window shopping with Parker. Cozied-up strolls and brunching together… are Carrie and Aidan end game?!

Along with puzzling storyline twists, ample behind-the-scenes pictures show Parker traipsing around in signature Carrie Bradshaw style. Most recently, on January 31, she was spotted wearing a micro-mini Fendi baguette bag as a necklace (practical!). Before that, back in October, there were viral photos of Parker clutching an all-too-realistic pigeon bag by JW Anderson while shooting. (This is a shocking pivot from Carrie’s hatred for the Judith Leiber swan bag that Mr. Big gave her in Sex and the City season 2, but no matter.) To make up for the outfit’s lack of on-the-go storage, her jumpsuit was complemented by yet another teeny Fendi bag, this time as an ankle accessory. All in all, each new costume sneak peek has been a little amuse-bouche for a season undoubtedly filled with loveably questionable fashion.

 

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On January 9, Parker was pictured in a brightly coordinated turquoise and fuchsia get-up (below). Choudhury, whose confident character has become a fan-favourite addition to the group, was spotted wearing a hooded golden gown with painted pin-up bangs and shimmery eyeshadow. The opulent look can only suggest season 2 will be filled with drama, and as it turns out, the show has been foreshadowing this type of theatricality for months.

The tail end of 2022 was filled with chaotic sneak peeks from the upcoming season of And Just Like That…. We saw Charlotte wearing a top hat, a hot pink blazer, and a bustle skirt adorned with bold stripes. We saw Lisa (Charlotte’s mom friend) donning a custom Valentino frock with a towering feathered headpiece. We saw Carrie sporting a reflective polka-dot dress with an oversized bow, fuchsia jacket and two gold hair bows sitting atop her heavily teased hair.

For those who are watching purely for nostalgia, it appears season 2 will offer some sentimental sartorial moments, too. In November, on-set photos showed Carrie in a reimagined version of the Vivienne Westwood wedding dress she wore in the first Sex and the City movie. Other behind-the-scenes shots imply that there will be another sidewalk burglary reminiscent of Carrie’s stolen Fendi baguette bag. The victim this time? Seema and her Birkin.

As these photographic tidbits make their way onto social media, they’ve been met with mixed reactions and skepticism. Is the fashion so over-the-top it’s become bad? Are the showrunners trying too hard? Has And Just Like That… become a lacklustre version of its iconic predecessor? To all of the above, we argue this: The best thing about this franchise is its campy costuming.

With a tendency to wear birds on her head and belts around her bare midriff, Carrie and her clothing choices were never rooted in practicality. Whether she’s stopping the show or just stopping traffic, her enduring reverence for her wardrobe is refreshing. With And Just Like That… season 2, we’re once again gifted that type of street-style nonsense from every angle.

 

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As the characters experiment with their looks — Carrie finds new ways to incorporate birds into her outfits, Miranda’s androgynous wardrobe is more feminine as she explores her queerness, Charlotte is now coordinating with her dog — And Just Like That… champions the message that women can have fun with their styles at any age. Above all, the series knows it looks ridiculous, and, like the show that came before it, it happily leans into that reputation.

The post The Latest Trailer for <em>And Just Like That…</em> Season 2 Is Here appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

What is The Idol about?

Created by Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), his producing partner Reza Fahim, and Euphoria creator Sam Levinson, The Idol is positioned as a cautionary tale about showbiz and the seedy underbelly of Hollywood. It centres on Jocelyn, a troubled pop star played by Lily-Rose Depp, who gets entangled with Tesfaye’s predatory cult leader character, Tedros. Also starring in the show are Dan Levy, Troye Sivan, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Eli Roth, Blackpink’s Jennie Ruby Jane and Hari Nef. Starting June 4, the six-episode series will be available on HBO. New episodes will drop every Sunday, meaning The Idol is following in the footsteps of HBO’s previous internet-dominating hits like Succession, The White Lotus, and Euphoria, which all had the coveted Sunday night streaming spot. In other words, it’s going to be big.

What’s the controversy around The Idol?

It all started in April 2022, when it was revealed that director Amy Seimetz was dropping out of the project after roughly 80 per cent of it was finished and a rumoured $54 to 75 million had been spent. Following the announcement of a creative overhaul, HBO appointed Levinson as The Idol’s new director — and he reportedly scrapped the entire thing. There was no one clear reason given for this change, but reports claim that Tesfaye felt the show was leaning too much into a “female perspective.”

The underlying air of uncertainty surrounding its production came to a fever pitch in March 2023 when Rolling Stone released an exposé about the troubling on-set culture and the script’s descent into chaos, at the hands of Levinson. After interviewing 13 members of the cast and crew, the publication reported that the director watered down the show’s message by “dialling up the disturbing sexual content and nudity.” As a result, sources claimed that the show romanticizes abuse, with some describing it as a “rape fantasy” and “torture porn.”

Essentially, what was originally a story about the trappings of fame and the exploitation of women was weakened to “a show about a man who gets to abuse this woman and she loves it,” as one source told Rolling Stone. Notably, HBO and the stars of the show have since pushed back on these claims. Depp released a statement to Rolling Stone praising Levinson as a director, while Tesfaye took a more public approach, tweeting a clip from the show in which his character calls the publication “irrelevant.” Cut to nearly three months in the future: incoming reviews of The Idol seem to align with Rolling Stone’s claims (but more on that later).

What’s Sam Levinson’s deal?

For starters, being provocative is kind of his whole shtick. After a meteoric rise to fame following Euphoria’s trendsetting success, the director’s work has been increasingly scrutinized. Even loyal Euphoria fans tend to have a fraught relationship with Levinson, as his storytelling style on the show has been criticized for exploiting trauma, over-sexualizing women (who are playing teenagers), and pushing triggering mental health content. Along with its beloved trance-inducing cinematography and escapist energy, Euphoria has also garnered a reputation for blurring the boundaries of what is ethical. And now, The Idol is being called a more extreme version of that.

What are critics saying about The Idol?

Ahead of its release, reviews are doubling down on murmurs of The Idol’s on-screen messiness. Vulture, for instance, cites “porn-adjacent” sex scenes, reductive writing and nearly constant nudity or partial nudity from Depp’s Jocelyn, while the male characters remain fully clothed. As the backlash ramps up, so too does the buzz — and perhaps that’s the point. At a press conference in Cannes, when asked about how he avoided taking sex scenes too far, Levinson reportedly replied, “Sometimes, things that might be revolutionary are taken too far.” Later, he revealed that after reading the scathing Rolling Stone feature, he felt assured that The Idol would be “the biggest show of the summer.”

So, what can viewers expect from The Idol?

Hyper-aestheticized storytelling is Sam Levinson’s calling card…so lots of that. After all, Euphoria’s undeniable influence is first and foremost rooted in kaleidoscopic visuals and a hypnotic soundtrack. Regardless of the show’s writing letdowns, it has always delivered irresistibly watchable vibes. Already brimming with tantalizing fashion and hazy imagery, it seems The Idol and its plot-point extremities are set to follow the same winning formula. Will it be successful? Should it be? Only time will tell.

The post Why Is <Em>The Idol</Em> So Controversial? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

RELATED: We Just Got Another Look At the Barbie Movie

The cast of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming movie descended upon CinemaCon on April 25, and Gosling was in fine Ken form. Margot Robbie, who plays Barbie, wore a preppy pink gingham two-piece set, which could have come straight from Mattel’s design book. Next to her, a spray-tanned Gosling appeared in a pair of dark wash jeans, a hot pink bomber jacket, and a white T-shirt with Gerwig’s name in Barbie bubble letters. With this, we can further understand a fundamental truth about the world: Gosling was made for this role.

In any given sneak peek of the viral film, Ryan Gosling can be seen wearing a chest-exposing top — his oiled-up abs contoured to cartoonish perfection — looking off into the distance at presumably nothing at all. Armed with bleach-blonde hair and a taste for eye-assaulting colours, Gosling looks at home as Ken. His on-screen trailer moments comprise a groan here, a wink there, and a general sense of befuddlement delivered with each line. Personality-wise, he gives nothing. And it’s sublime.

The thing is, Barbie is everything. She’s had over 200 careers, 20-plus dreamhouses, and a revolving door of wardrobe options that only gets more iconic with time. How does her boyfriend compete with that? Hint: he doesn’t. As the movie marketing states, he’s literally “just Ken.” He was created to be Barbie’s boyfriend; his raison d’être is to make her happy. Refreshingly, Ryan Gosling gets this. “Nobody plays with Ken [dolls],” Gosling said on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon back in July. He outlined Ken’s lack of prospects: no job, no money, no house. “He’s an accessory, and not even one of the cool ones.”

Even still, to be “just Ken,” one cannot be just good-looking. You must also understand the essence of Barbie’s beau, and Gosling does. He waxed his entire body for the role. He’s crafted a demeanour that is both hilarious and void of intentional humour. For months in interviews, he can’t stop bringing up an elusive “Kenergy.” Can it be taught? How is it measured? He never really says. But if the below video of him dancing circa 1992 is any indication, Gosling’s Kenergy is innate.

“This has been coming my whole life,” he told Variety. “I felt like I was seeing myself. I felt seen. I think a lot of Kens will feel seen when they see this.” Ken may be undeniably insignificant, but his big screen debut fills a void. Cinema doesn’t need another villain-fighting action hero or world-saving detective. Hollywood needs something much, much more important: Himbo representation. Defined as “an attractive but vacuous man,” the Himbo’s objective beauty may be initially intimidating, but his simple heart of gold always shines through. This archetype, in all his benign glory, has become an unlikely hero in recent years. Nobody fits that bill more than Ken, and Gosling embodies the side character with gravitas.

When he was first announced for the role, there was some online backlash. Critics said he wasn’t young enough to play the plastic boyfriend, lamenting that he lacked the Ken look. But with each new sneak peek, the 42-year-old has been proving that he not only understands the assignment, he was born for it.

“Up until this point, I only knew Ken from afar,” Gosling reportedly told the crowd at CinemaCon, discussing his approach to filming. “I didn’t know Ken from within. I doubted my Kenergy.” Lucky for us, he seems to have found it.

His CinemaCon get-up was not the first sign of his metamorphosis into the Mattel doll. Last summer, he donned an array of pastel suits when promoting his movie The Gray Man. More recently, on April 20, he sported highlighted grown-out hair and a pink dress shirt to an event in London, inevitably garnering Malibu Ken comparisons.

And, like Ken, Gosling’s Barbie reverence spills into each conversation. When asked about Margot Robbie’s cryptic clue that the movie is not what viewers expect, Gosling responded, “I would never correct Barbie…I would say whatever Barbie says is exactly right,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “Wait, what are we talking about?” he said moments later. Give this man an Oscar, stat!

We may still be months out from Barbie‘s anticipated release on July 21, 2023. But with Ryan Gosling as Ken, all is good in the world.

The post Ryan Gosling Was Born To Play Ken appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

RELATED: Barbiecore and Western Wear Are a Perfect Match

With each new crop of behind-the-scenes pictures or viral teasers, there is no discernible storyline — just a hit of dopamine and a Pepto Bismol-dipped dose of childhood nostalgia. On these vibes alone, Barbie has managed to captivate the world.

The latest trailer, released April 4, is an intoxicatingly chaotic viewing experience. It starts with a shot of Barbie (Margot Robbie) slipping off her feather mules, only for her bare feet to be permanently gelled in a pointed position. Right away, this flagrant disregard for foot health pokes fun at the unrealistic body standards that have come to define Barbie’s It girl image. And it serves as a harbinger of many delightful oddities to come.

Throughout the nearly two-minute sequence, everything looks sticky and bright (as it should). We have pink sand, cartoon buildings and plastic convertibles. The casting spans from Dua Lipa to Issa Rae to Canadian actor Michael Cera. We have a sea of saturated preppy styles and resort wear, including sugary tweed separates, retro menswear hotpants and lots of gingham. The costumes, conceived by Jacqueline Durran, are seemingly void of designer labels to further capture the make-believe nature of Barbie Land. But this extensive world-building doesn’t stop at the film’s marketing. Barbie is not just a movie, it’s a pop culture movement that is traversing industries. Look no further than the posters.

Everyone knows the most important step in achieving world domination is becoming a meme. Enter the now-ubiquitous Barbie banners. The minds behind the project have created an AI selfie generator, using science for good by allowing anyone to insert themselves into the Mattel world. As a result, in a few short days, Barbie has usurped nearly every other cinematic universe. The Devil Wears Prada may as well have been shot in Barbie Land. The Succession cast is suspiciously believable as respective plastic dolls. Pearl, the budding horror character du jour (played by Mia Goth), somehow seamlessly fits into the peppy branding. Even inflatable rats are getting a sparkly main character moment. And if they haven’t been made into Barbie, beloved pop culture figures have been brought into the Barbie multiverse as fans, from The Hunger Games characters to Scream’s murderous villain Ghostface. It’s a meme with a clear message: everyone is currently enthralled with Barbie.

The Barbie-fication of pop culture pushes back on the unattainable exclusivity that has historically overshadowed the doll’s legacy. By embracing its over-the-top essence and doubling down on its unrealistic campiness, the Barbie film has concocted an interactive lore that compels us all to get involved. Barbie is for everyone because Barbie is for no one. By reclaiming all its tired tropes, the Barbie movie is democratizing the ultimate symbol of aspiration. And for a franchise that has long been viewed as “girly” and therefore less important, Barbie’s 2023 ubiquity is pretty radical. The sheer excitement has even inspired a cultural revisiting of decades-old animated doll-centred movies — nay, “ancient texts.”

It’s not hard to see why we’re all glomming onto Barbie Land now. Yes, the Barbie movie offers a “look, pretty!” reprieve from the slog of every day. But with self-aware jokes and over-embellished artificial visuals, it also promises deeper commentary. The marketing of the film is intentionally vague and void of plot points. Margot Robbie has been notoriously tight-lipped about the project, apart from the occasional “expect the unexpected.” As such, each sneak peek is a fever dream of candy-coated nothingness, in which characters bask in blissful ignorance. And I think that’s the point. Barbie is a genetically modified carrot being dangled in front of us all, only to sneakily deliver a real message when we least expect it.

Social media profiles everywhere have been replaced with make-shift movie posters, the franchise’s hot pink is still a trending colour, and there are ample sleuthing series dedicated to decoding hints from the film’s marketing. Gerwig’s refreshed version of Barbie is heading for global domination, and there’s no end in sight. One day, perhaps nothing else will exist — the world will be only Barbie. And you know what? I’m OK with that.

The post It’s <Em>Barbie</Em>’s World, We’re Just Living in It appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Do you think we’ll all be a little sick of singing “come on Barbie, let’s go party?” by the time Barbie actually comes out in July 2023? Considering how long the film has been teased already, it’s not an entirely unfair question. Despite the fact that the first official Barbie teaser just dropped, the film has been in its hype era for way longer.

RELATED: Barbiecore and Western Wear Are a Perfect Match

In July of this year, the internet couldn’t stop obsessing over images of Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, spray tanned to golden California deliciousness, rollerblading at Venice Beach in blinding neon ’fits. News of Robbie’s casting as the iconic Mattel doll was confirmed in April but rumoured for far longer. But the film itself, a live action adaptation of Barbie world, has been in the works since 2014 (!), according to Entertainment Weekly. Here’s the scoop on that, plus everything else to know about the buzzy Barbie movie.

When is Barbie going to be released?

The film is slated to be released on July 21, 2023.

margot robbie’s outfits in greta gerwig’s barbie so far, costume design by jacquelien durran ༺☆༻ pic.twitter.com/5ZeKyPUWci

— ❦ (@saintdoII) December 16, 2022

 

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Who is starring in the live-action Barbie movie?

The film, directed by Greta Gerwig, stars Margot Robbie as the titular doll and Ryan Gosling as (who else?) Ken. And alongside the plastic power couple is a seriously star-studded cast, some of who appear in the teaser trailer. This includes Issa Rae, Canadian Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Alexandra Shipp, America Ferrera, Hari Nef and Will Ferrell. When the studio released brand-new character posters for the film on April 4, it was also revealed that singer Dua Lipa will star as a mermaid in the film.

 

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Wasn’t Amy Schumer originally going to play Barbie?

That is correct. Schumer was initially tapped to star as the blonde doll in 2016 when the film, billed as a new feminist take on the famous 1950s doll, was in development by Sony. The comedian left the project in 2017 due to “creative differences,” with Sony rumoured to have been wooing Anne Hathaway for the role. More delays sidelined the film and in 2019, it moved over to Warner Bros. and Gerwig, famous for directing Lady Bird and Little Women, took over.

barbie (2023) is going to change cinema pic.twitter.com/mGMZ2EPACw

— sasha (@pridenprcjudice) December 16, 2022

What happens in the Barbie teaser trailers?

Well, you can see for yourself below, but basically nothing…and everything. The first peek audiences got at the live-action film in December 2022 included Margot Robbie’s Barbie emerging in a dusty desert at the dawn of time, clad in a classic striped bather and open-toe mules, naturally. There are super-tight curled bangs. We’ve got flashes of Ryan Gosling in a fringed leather vest with a 10-pack of bronzed abs peeking out underneath. There are brief snippets of dance numbers featuring Issa Rae and Simu Liu. Oh, and an image of Barbie looking out into a very pink Barbie world (Barbieland? Barbieverse?). I don’t think we get to see the Barbie RV but then again, most of it flashes so quickly, it feels more like a fever dream than a Barbie teaser.

Lucky for us, fans got a deeper look at the forthcoming film on April 4 when Warner Bros. released a second longer teaser trailer. We get a hint at the plot, which shows Barbie and Ken travelling from Barbie Land to the real world, along with tons of iconic Barbie fashion — think pink gingham and marabou mules for the gals and denim vests and neon rollerblades for the guys.

Stay tuned as more is inevitably revealed about Barbie in the coming months. After all, life in plastic, it’s fantastic.

The post We Just Got Another Look At the <em>Barbie</em> Movie appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Warning: The White Lotusseason 2 finale spoilers ahead!

Arrivederci, Sicily! It’s been…tense. But also funny, sad, delightful and without a doubt, a fully sensorial experience thanks to that wildly catchy The White Lotus season 2 theme song. I’ve been showering, unloading the dishwasher and scrolling Instagram with the electronic dinger acting as my life soundtrack, and may I just say it’s made the most mundane tasks just a little more fun? Anyway, the great news is that The White Lotus is officially coming back for a third season, so one can safely assume there’ll be a third iteration of the show’s theme song to enjoy. The bad news? No Tanya McQuoid to utter perfect lines like “did you knit your little cap?” Here’s what we know about The White Lotus season 3.

Where will The White Lotus season 3 take place?

The fancy locale of the third season’s fictional White Lotus resort hasn’t been confirmed by HBO, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating.

Mike White teases ideas for #TheWhiteLotus Season 3 pic.twitter.com/6qPZz9pqPj

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) October 21, 2022

Series creator Mike White hinted at some possible locations in an interview with Deadline back in October, before season 3 was even official, suggesting that it would be interesting to go to a whole new continent, like Asia. “I think it’d be fun to maybe go to a whole different continent. You know, we did Europe… maybe Asia, something crazy like that, that would be fun.”

A thread on Reddit suggests that The White Lotus season 3 could unfold in Japan or India, both popular suggestions on social media that track with White’s comments.

On March 27, Variety reported that the show’s third season will take place at a lush resort in Thailand. “As the first two seasons of Mike White’s The White Lotus were shot at Four Seasons resorts in Hawaii and Italy, respectively, it’s possible that Season 3 will take place at one of the luxury hotel giant’s four properties in Thailand, which are located in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and the Golden Triangle,” the article states, noting that despite having received this info from multiple sources, HBO had declined to comment.

Will any of the characters from The White Lotus season 2 be back for season 3?

That remains to be seen, but given White’s record of having just two characters from season 1 return for season 2 (Tanya McQuiod, played masterfully by the iconic Jennifer Coolidge, and her new husband Greg, played by Jon Gries), it suggests he could do something similar in season 3. Now (SPOILER!) fans know from watching the season 2 finale that (seriously, spoiler!) our beloved Tanya can’t return, but it does leave some loose ends when it comes to her story. As writer Paul Tassi theorizes for Forbes, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of sinister Greg, who Tassi suggests is a “super villain” in The White Lotus universe.

“While we knew that at least one storyline would carry over from season 1 when we saw that Tanya was returning for season 2, in the wake of the finale which ends with Tanya’s death as she tries to escape an elaborate scheme to murder her and take her fortune, what’s been revealed is that The White Lotus universe may have a larger, over-arching, sinister plot, one that we may see continue when season 3 arrives next time,” writes Tassi.

By extension, this supports the idea that we also haven’t seen the last of Portia, who is the only living person (aside from the dude that jumped off Quentin’s yacht) who can connect the dots between Greg and Tanya’s death, with Tassi also theorizing that Quentin’s “nephew” Jack was meant to kill Portia, but instead let her go at the last second. “In the closing moments of the show, Jack warns Portia not to mess with the ‘powerful people’ he works for,” write Tassi, “including his uncle, but by proxy, that includes Greg, Tanya’s husband who now apparently inherits all of her vast fortune in the wake of her death.”

Have any new cast members been confirmed for season 3?

If the people of the internet have their way, both Pamela Anderson and Lindsay Lohan will be joining The White Lotus season 3. A fan-led campaign (including a petition) to cast Anderson as Tanya’s grieving sister got tons of attention back in February, while buzz around Lohan joining the all-star cast has recently been ramping up. According to Marie Claire, there are hundreds of tweets trying to manifest this iconic casting. No word yet on whether either of these famous women will appear in season 3.

Lindsay Lohan for WHITE LOTUS Season 3, obviously.

— Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) November 11, 2022

When will The White Lotus season 3 be released?

While a premiere date for the show’s third season hasn’t been announced, the short amount of time between seasons 1 and 2 suggests viewers could be watching guests could be checking into The White Lotus as soon as fall 2023.

What are some theories about the plot of The White Lotus season 3?

In addition to the continuation of the evil Greg plot mentioned above, there have been lots of theories thrown around about season 3. One popular one is that we’ll see Daphne Sullivan, the more-than-meets-the-eye wife of certified douchebag finance bro Cameron, head off on a luxurious girls’ trip. Immediately, yes! While we’re here, let’s take a moment to appreciate the excellent acting skills of Meghann Fahy, the anti-long-suffering wife:

Meghann Fahy is SUCH a good actor. these 30 seconds of Daphne processing her husband’s affair (and then calculating how she’s gonna get back at him) are perfection#TheWhiteLotus pic.twitter.com/razdMtDu5G

— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) December 12, 2022

Naturally, if The White Lotus season 3 sees Daphne and her suitcase full of cropped corset tops host a lush girls’ vacay, Harper has to be on the guest list and then, if we’re lucky, they both divorce their husbands when they get home.

On the topic of Daphne, Forbes writer Tassi points out that the aforementioned evil Greg plot also suggests a potential link between awful Greg et al and… d-bag Cameron. “If we’re on the subject of ‘powerful, shady people,’ I also recall what Daphne said about Cameron’s partners, that they were real ‘psychopaths,’ and also some of the most powerful people in finance,” writes Tassi.“ While we have no direct link between them and Greg, I do wonder if there is literally some sort of evil Legion of Doom being built behind the scenes of The White Lotus with Greg at the apex, which does not seem like such a wild theory after last night.” Whoa.

The post Everything To Know About <em>The White Lotus</em> Season 3 appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Succession wants you to believe it’s not a show about fashion.

The HBO drama (its third season just ended) follows the dysfunctional Roy family, owners of the billion-dollar media conglomerate Waystar RoyCo, led by aging patriarch Logan Roy. A darkly comedic series about the fight for power in a fraught media empire, Succession poignantly portrays the pitfalls of inherited wealth.

RELATED: Is Fashion Going Through a Minimalist Vibe Shift?

But between curse-laden sibling squabbles and heated investor calls, you may have wondered why these riches aren’t so obvious in the Roy family’s fashion choices.

Fan interest in the show’s wardrobe is undeniable, with an Instagram account dedicated to the characters’ outfits accumulating nearly 20,000 followers. This is not to say the Roys are particularly fashion-forward (how many plain black baseball caps does one family need?), but rather, the series’ style secret is about an affinity for quiet luxury.

When you’re as rich as the Roys, getting excited about anything — let alone clothing— is so passé. The media moguls don’t associate with flashy, logo-mania fashion, but instead wear luxury pieces that fly under the radar.

The price of a bag printed with a luxury fashion house logo like Louis Vuitton’s monogram print or Gucci’s double “G” stamp can be easily estimated. This is luxury, but not the luxury that fits the aesthetic (or tax bracket) of the Roy family.

Quiet luxury rejects the desire to show off. Items in the Roy realm of fashion are still extremely expensive, but only recognizable to certain people in certain circles that emit an aura of wealth by looking anonymously chic.

The fashion in Succession has been described by The New Yorker as “expensive but inconspicuous.” Often sporting neutral, subdued tones that are logo-less, the Roy family intentionally exudes extreme wealth and power. To this fictional family, wealth is not about what you have, but about what you don’t.

Characters who don a more flashy wardrobe — like Tom Wambsgans, husband to Shiv Roy — are ridiculed for being nouveau riche. Though Roy family members have their own personal style — take Shiv’s transformation from a traditionally feminine look to Ivanka Trump-esque business wardrobe — they choose not to opt for self-expression through fashion.

The show’s lack of obvious fashion moments is part of the costume direction. You’re not supposed to think about the clothes or where they’re from because if you know, you know. Succession costume designer Michelle Matland explained to The Ringer that the Roy family’s understated fashion is intentional and symbolic.

“They don’t need to have the bling to them, because anyone who would know would recognize them immediately,” she said. “They are the anti-Kardashians.”

The post <em>Succession</em> Has Mastered the Art of Quiet Luxury appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Ah, winter: the perfect time to stay inside, all horny and with nowhere to go. Why not live vicariously through cinema’s lovers? We rounded up some of the sexiest movies on Netflix for you. Happy watching!

The Age of Innocence

Hot people present: Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis

What is it about? Uptight Newland is engaged to sweet May — but he’s thirstin’ for her cousin, the scandalous divorcee Countess Olenska.

Horny highlights: Martin Scorsese called this movie “the most violent film I’ve made.” What’s hotter than watching people have sex? Watching people who are desperate to have sex and absolutely cannot have sex. In the age of innocence, a stolen kiss on the wrist is far, far hornier than the most graphic smashfest.

Get a li’l taste:

Crazy Stupid Love

Hot people present: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei

What is it about? A separated sadsack gets dating lessons from a dead-inside PUA — who is obscenely good-looking.

Horny highlights: Emma Stone initially rebuffs Ryan Gosling, only to change her mind when faced with the grotesque fate of being wed to Josh Groban forever. She does the patented journey-through-the-rainstorm to get to Gosling, culminating in a passionate clinch and one of cinema’s cutest hookups, complete with Dirty Dancing lift and Stone’s goggle-eyed delight at his Photoshop-level abs.

Get a li’l taste:

Dirty Dancing

Hot people present: Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey

What is it about? Sheltered feminist teen Baby crushes on sentient beefsteak/dance instructor Johnny Castle during one fateful summer at a Catskills resort.

Horny highlights: SLOWDANCING TO SOLOMON BURKE’S “CRY TO ME.”

Get a li’l taste: 

Duck Butter

Hot people present: Laia Costa, Alia Shawkat

What is it about? A pair of queer gals spend 24 hours together to see if they really actually like each other.

Horny highlights: Well, they like each other enough to bang. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. The sex in this movie is genuinely horny-inducing: it feels authentic, raw and real, complete with mutual masturbation, and tons of vigorous hand stuff. Hot. Very hot.

Get a li’l taste:

Need more horny movie recos? Try these!

She’s Gotta Have It: Horny — and extremely stylish — Brooklynite Nola Darling prioritizes pleasure and juggles three (annoyingly useless) dudes in Spike Lee’s first feature film, inspiring non-monogamous folks everywhere.

The Incredible Jessica James: 2 Dope Queens co-host Jessica Williams spars with Chris O’Dowd…and the banter is even hotter than the sex. (Although the sex is also pretty hot.)

Friends with Benefits: Mila Kunis is peak babe here in a rom-com about two amigos who sate their horniness with each other, no strings attached (not to be confused with the Ashton Kutcher/Natalie Portman movie No Strings Attached, which is about the exact-same thing). Even Justin Timberlake is tolerable!

Bugsy: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening got horny for each other IRL on this movie (and are still going strong three decades later) — and it’s all on-screen, baby.

Amar: You know who’s really horny? Teens. Especially Euro teens. Like, this Spanish film opens with a casual pegging!

The post These Are the Sexiest Movies on Netflix appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Update: Netflix confirmed on January 6 that the popular original series Wednesday had been renewed for season 2. “Thrilled to continue Wednesday’s tortuous journey into season two,” said showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar in an official statement. “We can’t wait to dive head first into another season and explore the kooky spooky world of Nevermore. Just need to make sure Wednesday hasn’t emptied the pool first.” According to the Hollywood Reporter, the debut season of Wednesday, starring goth-glam queen Jenna Ortega, has become Netflix’s third most-popular series of all time, behind the fourth season of Stranger Things and Squid Game. No word yet on when the second season will drop, but the streamer marked the announcement with the below video. And until we can enjoy more Wednesday on-screen, we can at least emulate her gloomy singular style. Keep reading for how.

Is there anything scarier than being a teenage girl? Amidst intimidating cliques and awkward growing pains, sometimes high school can feel like a horror film. But to Wednesday Addams, that’s a good thing.

The eldest daughter of the infamous Addams family loves to flip the script on young adolescence by embracing her outsider persona. In her eyes, teenhood may be terrifying, but she’s the one you should be afraid of.

But it’s not just her blazing individuality (not to mention quippy one-liners and malevolent charm) that have long solidified her as main character material. It’s also her iconic look. In Netflix’s upcoming spin-off, Wednesday, she steps into the spotlight as a style icon for the moody teen in all of us.

Directed by Tim Burton, the eight-episode series puts a new twist on the classic Addams Family tale by focusing on the franchise’s devious daughter, played by Jenna Ortega. After a streak of bad luck in public high schools, Wednesday’s parents, Gomez (Luis Guzman) and Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) send her to Nevermore Academy, the academic institution where they first met. There, she embarks on a journey filled with “mystery, mayhem, and murder.” Not exactly the makings of an enriching school experience — unless, of course, you’re Wednesday Addams.

In this coming-of-age dark comedy, Burton adds his signature grim touch to the series’ spooky imagery. From the moment Ortega’s Wednesday appears in the newly released trailer, it’s obvious that she’s an outcast — and that’s the point. Unlike most teens, she doesn’t want to fit in. In fact, rejecting social norms is her whole shtick. And this rebellious attitude translates to her uniform, designed by costumer and longtime Burton collaborator, Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.)

With long braids, a black collared dress and a dejected demeanour, Wednesday Addams’s outfit is simple yet intense. Her style compiles a myriad of moods including gothic visuals, babydoll silhouettes and edgy schoolgirl influences. And with such a recognizable oeuvre, she’s the inspiration behind endless fashion homages, from Halloween costumes to runway shows. Case in point: she’s arguably the blueprint for Dark Academia, the gloomy viral TikTok aesthetic comprised of Peter Pan collars, pleated kilts and dark, long blouses.

Thanks to her taste for forlorn fashion, Wednesday has become an apropos pandemic style idol. And amid the rise in edgy dressing, the terrifying teen has never been more on-trend. (Though she couldn’t care less about that.)

With interests that include torturing her brother, hanging out with her pet spider and generally appearing miserable, Wednesday is not exactly the ideal It Girl. So, the fact that her look is highly coveted is a refreshing reminder that anyone can be a style icon, not just the cool kids.

As her fashion sense indicates, Wednesday Addams has mastered agency at a young age. She’ll smile when she wants to, but not to please others. She unapologetically leans into her dreary ensemble. She’s weird, and she likes it that way. Ultimately, through her creepy quirks, she subverts the trope that girls should be sweet and agreeable.

All this to say, Wednesday Addams is a style figurehead. And in Netflix’s Wednesday, premiering at the end of 2022, viewers will finally see the emotional arc of a character known for her apathy. She’s kooky, spooky and loves a capsule wardrobe. And that’s what makes Wednesday Addams a true icon.

Looking to add the gift of gloom to your own wardrobe? Find your perfect Wednesday Addams outfit and channel The Addams Family’s infamous daughter.

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Scheana dress

($310, Reformation)

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Lovey ruffle socks

( $49, Free People)

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Lily shoulder bag

($89, JW Pei)

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Velvet hair bow

($19, Kristin Ess)

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Lace-collar mini dress

($416, b+ab)

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Approach black loafers

($90, Steve Madden)

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Black formal midi dress

($353 , Julia Allert)

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Black viscose jacket

($915, Mach & Mach)

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Black mesh tights

($290, Marine Serre)

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Monolith leather and nylon fabric boots

($2,150, Prada)

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The post Subversive Style Icon Wednesday Addams Is Returning for Season 2 appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Zendaya, Hunter Schafer, Sydney Sweeney and Maude Apatow all gathered at The Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles for an awards season event. Following a screening of the fifth episode of season 2, the actors participated in a panel discussion where they revealed future hopes for their fictional teen counterparts, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

We couldn’t help but notice how the celebs’ ensembles majorly strayed from their respective on-screen styles. After all, fashion in Euphoria is nothing if not strategic. Throughout the series, costume designer Heidi Bivens has famously used clothing to illustrate each character’s personal arc. Thus, their real-life fashion choices may just tell us something about season 3.

Look no further than Zendaya. As an executive producer and star of the series, the 26-year-old has high hopes for the development of her character, Rue Bennett, who struggles with drug addiction. Wearing oversized hoodies, no makeup and long hair that is perpetually in her face, Rue’s style shows how she doesn’t exactly have it all together. She is the antithesis of preppy fashion, but Zendaya delivered this exact aesthetic to promote the show, wearing a checkered Schiaparelli skirt paired with a button-up collared top. She finished the put-together ensemble with a brand-new sleek bob.

Was this a nod to her optimism about Rue’s trajectory? It’s not that far-fetched to argue yes. “I want people to know that there is something beautiful inside of her, whether she can see it at that time or not,” Zendaya said at the event. She went on to share that her biggest wish for Rue is to find happiness. “I just hope for a little bit of joy and for her just to be able to breathe and love without the fear of losing.”

On the other hand, Hunter Schafer, whose character Jules Vaughn goes from hyper-feminine in season 1 to edgy and androgynous in season 2, marked the occasion in an understated Rick Owens ensemble. Sporting a one-shoulder top and asymmetrical skirt with light makeup and chunky black boots, Schafer’s elegant ensemble emitted self-assured energy — something Jules is missing. Notably, during the Q&A, she said, “I think the product of Jules’ vice that she’s looking for is closeness with other people,” adding that she’s seeking safety and non-judgemental connections, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Or take Cassie Howard (played by Sydney Sweeney) who has an often risqué, brightly coloured, shapeshifting wardrobe that represents how she doesn’t really know who she is. Sweeney, conversely, channelled down-to-earth schoolgirl subtly in an oversized Thom Brown get-up. Naturally, she noted how Cassie is always searching for a sense of family in everyone else. Interesting.

Then we have Cassie’s younger sister Lexi Howard (played by Maude Apatow), whose conservative style signifies her tendency to underestimate herself. In a delightful turn of events, Apatow sported the most risk-taking look of all in an asymmetrical cut-out velvet dress by Rodarte. At the event, she said she hopes that going forward, Lexi can free herself from “negative self-talk.” Step one: wear a dress like this.

While the premiere date for the third season has yet to be confirmed, it is speculated that it could arrive as soon as early 2023. Along with Zendaya, Schafer, Sweeney and Apatow, fan favourites Alexa Demie (who plays Maddy), Jacob Elordi (Nate) and Dominic Fike (Elliot) are reportedly set to return. Unfortunately, season 3 will notably be missing Barbie Ferreira’s character, Kat, who announced her shocking departure from the series in August 2022.

Today, Euphoria can be described as a show where everyone makes really bad decisions — except when it comes to their outfit choices. With award season around the corner, the cast is clearly using their chic style to generate buzz for a new instalment of the teen drama. And if these looks are any indication, Euphoria season 3 will yet again be a very fashionable affair.

The post The <em>Euphoria</em> Women Are Back appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

With her matching sets, floral patterns and persistently perky attitude, it’s almost too easy to write Daphne off as one-dimensional. But beneath this surface-level sweetness, she’s perhaps the most cunning, calculating, and interesting character on the show. Written and directed by Mike White, the HBO series famously unravels the sinister side of luxury vacations by tackling topics like power dynamics and wealth gaps. Daphne, with her alluring airheadedness, is the personification of these dichotomies.

In episode one, she’s presented as the ditzy wife of Cameron (Theo James), who has arranged a double-date vacation to Sicily, Italy with his old friend from college, Ethan (Will Sharpe), and Ethan’s wife Harper (Aubrey Plaza). Right off the bat, Daphne’s sanguinity stands out. She and Cameron are in a perpetual honeymoon phase, while Ethan and Harper have precisely zero chemistry. Costume designer Alex Bovaird makes her style bright and breezy, while Harper’s is structured and sober. All in all, Daphne’s life seems pretty perfect. And that’s because she doesn’t really care about anything.

In her daily life, Daphne is untouched by real-world issues. She doesn’t watch the news, she can’t remember if she voted, and she remains indifferent to her husband’s misogynistic hot takes. This surface-level superficiality is reflected in her incessantly cheery wardrobe. Wearing brands like Zimmerman, Ramy Brook and Gucci, Daphne is the quintessential hot mom and flirty wife. With a penchant for flowy silhouettes, outlandish prints and bright, bold colours, she treats getting dressed as a cause for celebration.

It soon becomes clear, however, that Daphne’s situation isn’t as flawless as it seems. Though she and her husband put forth an image of the ideal marriage, their relationship is actually built on mistrust and mind games. This proverbial curtain is pulled back in episode three, when Daphne reveals to Harper that she and Cameron like to play psychological “games” with one another. Not only does she know that Cameron routinely cheats on her, but she also implies that she has an ongoing affair with her personal trainer. She finishes by alluding that one (or more) of her children aren’t actually Cameron’s. “I’m not a victim,” she tells Harper, adding that sometimes, you do what you have to do to make yourself feel better.

As such, her colourful, moneyed style communicates an uncomplicated optimism. She’s rich, she’s conventionally pretty, and she’s incredibly privileged. So, despite the things that are wrong in her life, she always looks good. And as it turns out, this self-involved stance is what allows her to survive in otherwise unfulfilling circumstances.

As the trip goes on, the tension in the group grows. Harper finds out that Cameron cheated on Daphne, and suspects that Ethan cheated on her. Cameron and Harper kiss behind Ethan’s back. Ethan attacks Cameron. And although Daphne is at the centre of this drama, she remains impressively unbothered. Always holding an Aperol spritz, wearing a vague grin and serving an impeccably coordinated outfit, Daphne’s aesthetic is about impenetrable nonchalance. Her over-the-top style may suggest she’s easy to figure out, but nobody ever knows what she’s really thinking.

Daphne’s complexity culminates in the season finale. Aptly titled “Arrivederci,” the episode takes place on the last day of the group’s Italian getaway. In one pivotal scene, Ethan tells Daphne that he thinks their spouses’ cheated on them with one another. Her face briefly falls, but in true Daphne fashion, she brushes it off. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she responds cheerfully, adding that you don’t need to know everything about someone to love them. “I’m a mystery to myself,” she cryptically continues. “I think you just do whatever you have to do not to feel like a victim of life.”

Following this exchange, the pair go to a secluded part of the island, where it is implied they, themselves, have sex. This scene captures the enigmatic essence of Daphne. As she walks, her fuchsia cover-up blows in the wind, her voluminous curls bounce up and down and a signature smile remains plastered on her face. But in this moment, it’s clear that there’s much more to her than meets the eye.

While Ethan and Harper go through a relationship reckoning on the trip, Daphne and Cameron remain largely unchanged. Despite their infidelities, they maintain a lovey-dovey dynamic. And just like her deceiving relationship, Daphne’s outlandish style never strays from its ethereal artificiality.

No one in The White Lotus is objectively “good,” but Daphne’s darkness is deliciously layered. All in all, she serves as a metaphor for head-in-the-sand serenity. Sure, money can’t buy happiness. But as Daphne Sullivan points out, it can buy delightful indifference. And isn’t that often essentially the same thing?

Ready for more luxury vacation drama? Here’s everything we know about The White Lotus season 3. 

The post Daphne Makes the Case for Blissful Ignorance In <Em>The White Lotus</Em> appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

The hit HBO series, written and directed by Mike White, has become known for its clever critiques of wealth gaps, privilege and power dynamics, using all-inclusive resorts as a backdrop. The second season once again follows the twisting storylines of wealthy Americans in a foreign location, this time set in Sicily, Italy. Throughout the show, flashy vacation wear, carefully selected by costume designer Alex Bovaird, is juxtaposed with the dark mood, eerie music and impending knowledge of a fatal ending. Employment lawyer Harper — who undergoes a drastic change in style throughout the season — arguably embodies this foreboding arc the most.

Episode one opens with Harper and her husband, newly minted tech millionaire Ethan (Will Sharpe), beginning their double date vacation with an out-of-touch couple: Ethan’s former college roommate, the conceited finance bro Cameron (Theo James) and his bubbly wife Daphne (Meghann Fahy). Right away, Harper sticks out in the group. Her conservative, sharp, structured ensembles stand in contrast to Daphne’s light, breezy, floral looks — and this is no coincidence.

While Harper’s style is chic and fashion-forward, it portrays her unsubtle anxiety about the trip: she’s uncomfortable with her husband’s newfound extreme wealth, she’s grappling with the lack of passion in her relationship and she’s on edge about the motives of the couple they’re with.

Daphne and Cameron are in a comfortable bubble of privilege: they don’t care about politics, world issues or anyone below their tax bracket. This sense of divide in the group is further felt by the opposing romantic dynamics: Daphne and Cameron have an affectionate, PDA-filled relationship while Harper and Ethan seem to be merely tolerant of one another.

Right off the bat, Harper suspects that something is off about their travel companions — especially Cameron. In the first episode, while borrowing a pair of Ethan’s swim trunks, he strips down naked within strategic eyeshot of Harper. She wonders if this suggestive move was intentional, but when she brings these concerns up to Ethan, he writes them off as cynical and negative, asking her to be less judgemental.

At the request of her husband, Harper makes an effort to be agreeable in episode three. Her attitude switches alongside her style, as she wears a light green dress with her hair pulled back in a silk headband and sticks to surface-level pleasantries. In this preppy, girlish ensemble, she’s suppressing her apprehensive gut feelings. Almost immediately, Daphne compliments Harper on this new look — which is, in fact, not really her.

But as the trip continues, she ventures further from her buttoned-up first impression and continues to dress more feminine and playful. It’s no coincidence that this evolution takes place as she spends more time with Daphne while growing distant from Ethan. During a girls’ trip off the resort, the pair bond and Harper even lets her new friend buy her a beach-y, bohemian dress.

On this outing, however, Daphne divulges that she and Cameron aren’t as perfect as they appear. She says they play psychological “games” with one another, implying that they both have extra-marital affairs. Notably, while this conversation is happening, Cameron and Ethan are back at the resort hanging out with prostitutes, whom Cameron proceeds to sleep with.

But despite Cameron’s cheating, Ethan won’t tell Harper the full truth about it when asked, leading her sense of worry to spiral. From Daphne and Cameron’s misleading honeymoon-phase marriage to Ethan’s inability to communicate, Harper notices the laissez-faire dynamics of this moneyed group are built on artificiality — so that’s what she starts to give.

Harper begins to put forth a manufactured cheery attitude in the group setting. As such, she goes from being the antithesis of Daphne to almost matching her. This is shown the most when the couples visit a vineyard in episode five, where Bovaird purposely put Daphne and Harper in coordinating high-waisted pants and fitted cropped tanks. Despite carefree appearances, Harper’s suspicion towards the men is still top of mind.

It becomes clear to Harper that the unwritten rules within this wealthy circle are to play along with the illusion that everything is perfect. Case in point: at the end of the episode, Cameron brazenly feels Harper’s thigh under the dinner table with both their spouses present — confirming her initial suspicion about him that was dismissed by her husband.

As she develops an alliance with Daphne while feeling both isolated from Ethan and preyed on by Cameron, Harper’s main conflict is the sense of mistrust about the men around her. This culminates in episode six when she and Ethan are more distant than ever. In her first scene, she confronts him about their non-existent sex life. She says, “You’re not attracted to me,” a statement that he never denies. She asks, “Do you even want me?” prompting him to dance around the question by saying he loves her.

Style-wise, she spends the majority of the episode in a bikini and pink beach cover-up. This stripped-back, sexier side emulates Daphne and further demonstrates her disconnect from Ethan. And as she and Ethan struggle to communicate, she spends the day talking with Cameron. In one crucial scene, they even leave the beach together to go back to their adjoining rooms, forcing Ethan to wonder if she cheated on him with his frenemy, even going into his own spiral of worry.

The truth? Viewers may never know, and that’s the point. As her skepticism evolves, Harper’s style continues to deliver the unexpected. By trading conservative matching sets for ultra-feminine frocks, her manufactured ensembles add to the sense of worry in The White Lotus. What will Harper wear next? We’ll be watching the season finale on December 11 to find out.

The post How Harper’s Changing Style Signifies Suspicion In <Em>The White Lotus</Em> appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

I’m not talking about the classics — Home Alone, The Grinch, Elf — which are, obviously, masterpieces. Nay, dear reader. I’m referring to the run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter rom-com featuring stereotypical Hallmark storylines and everyone-saw-it-coming endings. With notable characteristics including a festive town backdrop, an always picturesque protagonist and a mysterious old man who is definitely not secretly Santa Claus, these formulaic flicks are basically asking to be made fun of. And even though a new, overabundant crop of them is churned out each year, I, for one, never tire of watching them.

Lindsay Lohan’s Falling For Christmas is one such example. The Netflix original, which came out this November, generously gave the world two gifts: the triumphant return of an early 2000s icon and a quintessentially corny holiday plot. It goes like this: After losing her memory in an accident, a spoiled heiress tries to piece together her old life while staying at a quaint ski lodge and bonding with its charming owner. A love story unfolds. It’s cliché, overly sentimental and so bad it’s good. These are the aspects I have come to not only expect but love about holiday movies.

Case in point: one Friday night, not too long ago, as I sat on my couch with nowhere to go (rhyme intended), I had way too much fun watching yet another new cheesy film: The Noel Diary. A famous writer returns to his sleepy hometown to fulfill family duties, where he meets a woman who is looking for her birth mother. What happens next, you ask? Why, a love story ensues, of course.

Still not intrigued? Allow me to suggest 2021’s Single All The Way, where two best friends, Peter and Nick, pose as each other’s boyfriends in an effort to avoid family judgment about being single around the holidays. (Bonus: Jennifer Coolidge is in this.) Also, a love story ensues. *Chef’s kiss*

Notice a theme? These feel-good films follow all-too-familiar tropes, and before embarking on this type of unique viewing experience, you have to come to terms with what you’re getting: not much originality. But that’s kinda where their beauty lies. The songs are familiar festive jingles. The plots are generic enough that you can talk through half the movie and still know what’s going on. The wardrobe is delightfully predictable: pea coats for the down-to-earth love interest, fuzzy head-to-toe outfits for the spoiled character with something to learn, and a sea of plaid for everyone else. It’s a formula that works, and it’s repeated time after time.

A few searches on any streaming service will offer an endless variation of titles that are all seemingly iterations of the exact same thing. We have your location-specific flicks: A California Christmas, A Very Country Christmas, A Castle For Christmas. There’s the small town love story: The Holiday Calendar, Hometown Holiday, Falling Inn Love. Even wedding-centred movies have become their own subgenre: Christmas Wedding Planner, A New York Christmas Wedding, A Bride for Christmas. Yes, these are all real movies. And they’re tens across the board!

Sure, the same plots are churned out year after year. And, yeah, the actors always have questionably perfect hair and makeup — even if they just woke up or went tobogganing. Of course, we see the romantic happy endings coming from a mile away. Are they realistic? Absolutely not. But who says they should be? The right holiday rom-com is, at its core, pure escapism.

Like lighting a scented candle or taking a hot bath, swaddling up in a fluffy duvet and watching predictable Christmas movies is a form of self-care I take seriously. They may not change the world with cutting-edge storytelling, but these cinematic works of art reliably provide some joie de vivre at a time when everything is colder, darker and bleaker. They’re here to bring you some holiday spirit, goshdarnit, and that’s what they’re going to do.

After all, not every piece of media we consume has to be deep or thought-provoking. Sometimes having no thoughts at all except “Aw” and “Pretty!” is exactly what I need at the end of a long year. ’Tis the season to turn off your brain, let bad things be bad and appreciate unapologetically cheesy Christmas movies.

The post The Case For Cheesy Holiday Movies appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Getting the “Emilycore” look showcased in Emily in Paris is pretty simple: think understated pieces, straight-cut silhouettes and versatile neutrals that capture the essence of Parisian chic.

Just kidding.

For two seasons, the Netflix dramedy has made headlines for its chaotic, impractical costumes – a reflection of the show’s messy plotlines and clunky clichés. And through it all, the titular lead, played by Lily Collins, has earned a questionable sartorial reputation.

But for some, Emily’s unapologetic ridiculousness is just what this world needs. The beauty of Emilycore lies in its escapism. Life is hard enough. Why not at least dress like you’re living in a fantasy?

Created by legendary costume designer Patricia Field, Emily’s wardrobe is comprised of eye-catching colours, prints, textures and shapes. It’s an overwhelming oeuvre that perfectly suits her (sort-of insufferable) personality.

Read on to learn how to master Emilycore. Plus, snag a sneak peek at the exuberant outfits coming your way in season three.

Step one: Feel the rainbow

Turning every head in the room is très important. To do so, you must choose combinations that most people would never think — or dare — to wear. For Emily, there’s nary a kitschy print or colour-blocking combo that’s too tacky. Florals, checkers and stripes? A winning assortment. Layers of clashing neon hues? The more the merrier. In season three, we see our main character carry on this fashion philosophy in a rainbow sweater, metallic skirt and knee-high green boots.

Pro tip: When piecing together an outfit, ask yourself, “Do any of these things remotely go together?” And if the answer is no, then, voilà! You’re Emilycore approved.

Step two: When in doubt, add another accessory

As Coco Chanel never said, minimalism is overrated. And according to the Emily in Paris rulebook, one should never leave the house without an exorbitant amount of accessories. By now, we all know that if Emily loves one thing, it’s an eye-popping beret. But the eccentric marketing exec has a penchant for any type of add-on, be it busy bucket hats, Old-Hollywood headscarves or pairs upon pairs of fingerless leather gloves. Naturally, season three promises plenty more outfit embellishments, from oversized eyewear to floral-print knee-high socks.

Step three: Always opt for impractical footwear

Comfortable shoes? Quelle horreur! Of all the show’s shocking outfit changes, one thing remains constant: Emily and her bestie Mindy’s (a.k.a. FASHION’s Winter 2023 cover star Ashley Park) love for impossibly high heels. Even the cobbled streets of France won’t stop her from wearing Louboutins on a daily basis. Emilycore is about dressing to fit your excessive personality, not your environment. In other words, flats are the devil. But take caution: after wearing so many stilettos to portray the American ex-pat, Collins reportedly had regular visits with a podiatrist to “fix her feet.” So, in the spirit of escapism-meets-foot-health, snag some custom insoles before strutting around in your favourite pair of pumps.

In need of more inspiration? Check out the just-released Emily in Paris season three trailer here:

Scroll through the gallery below to catch a glimpse of the OTT fashion in the show’s upcoming new episodes.

Photography by Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography by Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix

Photography by Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography by Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography by Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix

Photography by Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

Photography by Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

Photography by Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix

Photography by Marie Etchegoyen/Netflix

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The post How to Channel the Absurdity of “Emilycore” from <Em>Emily in Paris</Em> appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

It’s this portrayal of everyday life, in all its mundanity, that has made the show so adored; whereas so many TV shows and films portray trans trauma, Sort Of is deliciously regular. Sort Of also succeeds in its “ordinary” storytelling because of its actors’ delivery: perfectly deadpan, stunningly nuanced and never overly camp.

So what’s next for Sabi and friends as they find themselves, look for love and try to carve out their place in the world? As Sabi says in the season 2 trailer (below), “That’s what I want — my family and friends and I want that uncomplicated, Rachel McAdams love.”

Here’s everything to know about the highly anticipated second season of Sort Of.

When does Sort Of season 2 air?

The second season of the beloved CBC original series premieres on November 15, 2022.

How can I watch the second season of Sort Of?

Great news — fans can stream episodes of Sort Of season 2 for free on CBC Gem.

What’s the plot of Sort Of season 2?

The new season of Sort Of is all about Sabi’s evolution, slowly but surely becoming increasingly confident in who they are as an individual, from their choice of friends to their wardrobe.

Is there a trailer for the new season of Sort Of?

Sure is. Watch the trailer for the new season of Sort Of here:

The post <em>Sort Of</em> Season 2 Is Almost Here appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Bilal Baig moved into a new apartment in Toronto a few months ago and apologizes for “the mess.” But there isn’t much visible on my computer screen, even when Baig takes me on a video tour. They show me the yellow walls in the living room, purple in the kitchen, and the art by Harmeet Rehal and Meera Sethi they haven’t had time to hang because Sort Of, the CBC and HBO Max original comedy written by Baig and Fab Filippo, has been renewed for season two and shooting starts this spring.

Since launching last fall, the show has been hailed for breaking barriers – from its normalized portrayal of trans people to Baig being the first queer South Asian Muslim actor in a Canadian primetime series. Unlike that other CBC show with an LGBTQAI2S+ lead, Schitt’s Creek, Sort Of has little to no camp and zero stereotyping. “One of the things we didn’t want to see was somebody snap their fingers and read somebody down,” Baig says, swishing their hand around and using the slang for pointing out a person’s flaws. In fact, the realness is what makes the show so widely relatable. When Baig’s character, Sabi Mehboob, reveals to their mother they are working as a nanny, she looks at them in horror and replies, “Like Mary Poppins?”

Uh, not exactly. For starters, Mehboob is often dressed in boho layers for day and shiny minidresses by night. Shelley Mansell, costume designer for season one, mined the wardrobe from local Toronto shops selling both new and secondhand including VSP Consignment, Fashionably Yours, Second Nature and Rewind Couture.

Baig, too, is an enthusiastic thrifter, citing Common Sort, Nouveau Vintage and Black Diamond as their favourite destinations. “I like things that feel lived in,” they explain, adding a desire to shop responsibly is also top of mind. “When I was in high school I was really silly with my money. I got a part time job at Baskin Robbins and all I did was buy clothes.”

Today’s look is a floaty butterfly print top, pleather leggings, a filigree cuff, and three of their mother’s bangles. Raiding her jewellery box is something Baig started as a child growing up in Mississauga.

“There wasn’t a punishment associated with me wanting to wear my mom’s bangles or explicitly exploring my femininity at an early age,” they note. “My parents had some very strong values on how they wanted us to be raised and at the same time, there was a lot of freedom in my childhood to express myself.”

Not fearing rejection allowed Baig to grow in a way they may not have otherwise, they believe. “And interestingly, I think my parents are on their own journey of learning more about themselves too.”

So what can fans expect in season two?

For starters, there might be romance on the horizon. “I think it’s so delicious where we’ve left Sabi at the end of season one,” Baig says, with a smile stretching across their rose pink lips. Mehboob had to give up plans to join their BFF in Berlin when the mother of the children they look after has a serious bike accident. That and “sort of” coming out to their own mother combine for an emotional growth spurt that pushes the character to a new level of maturity for season two.

“I think they’re in a more open place when we meet them at the start of season two and I think they’re a little bit more open to receiving love,” Baig describes. “And more open to just being themselves more fully and freely in the world. And I think a lot of fun comes from that.”

On April 10, the Canadian Screen Awards will air with Sort Of leading with 13 nominations. And whether Baig and their colleagues take home top honours, they have already won in ways that are far more personal.

“My DMs are so full of really beautiful expressions of love and gratitude from lots of different kinds of people,” Baig says. “People talk about how they watch the show with their parents and that their parents have started to use their pronouns correctly, or at least really making a strong effort to. Folks have messaged me letting me know that they feel more certain than ever that they will transition or come out to their family. It’s like this spirit of opening. It means that it has reached people and changed lives and opinions, and that’s major.”

Check out the trailer for season 2 of Sort Of here:

The post Bilal Baig Teases Romance and Fun for <em>Sort Of</em> Season Two appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Whenever new reality dating shows are announced, I cross my fingers for fat contestants. As a fat person, I’m used to not seeing myself on TV unless the role upholds the tired tropes of fat folks being sad, lonely, sexless and unloveable. But still, I hope that we’ve come far enough that we’ll finally see ourselves on reality TV finding love, loving ourselves, and having sex (because news flash: we do) like everyone else. I thought Love Is Blind might be the show to change that, considering its entire premise is supposedly about the unimportance of appearance. I was wrong.

I had a glimmer of hope when I realized that Alexa Alfia, the first not-super-skinny main character on the show, would be a fixture in season 3. It’s a welcome change after Love Is Blind previously baited us in previews and didn’t deliver, by including plus-size women in the season 2 trailer only for them to not make it past the first episode. To be clear, Alfia is by no means fat, and yet her early storyline revolves around that supposed fact. During her introduction episode, she says, “I’m curvy; I’m not for everybody,” and that she could “stand to lose some weight.” Casting Alfia is presumably the show’s response to being called out last year for lacking size-diverse contestants, to which co-host Vanessa Lachey blamed fat people for being too “insecure” to put ourselves forward for casting.

Love Is Blind’s treatment of fat people isn’t a surprise, considering the reality TV genre makes buckets of money by poking fun at fatness. Just look at shows like The Biggest Loser and My 1000-Pound Life that serve to both humiliate and degrade fat people. There’s even an entire Reddit master list of unscripted shows about larger people. Knowing what we know about how society feels about us, it’s not shocking that we wouldn’t be included in shows about finding love. Who would love us, after all, when according to influential people like Lachey, we don’t even love ourselves?

While Alfia has gone on to speak favourably about her body, leaning in to her love for food and the validation from her fiancé Brennon Lemieux (who *gasp* still liked her after seeing her), it left me wondering why there is still so much resistance to size-diverse casting in the unscripted world — and if we really want to be included in it at all.

Amanda Gardner, 25, has the same question. A popular TikTok creator, Gardner has become a fan favourite on the platform for her pop-culture commentary and calling people out on their fatphobia. Along with loving fashion and beauty, she also loves reality TV, Temptation Island and The Bachelor, specifically — two shows notorious for excluding fat people. (After 44 seasons of The Bachelor and Bachelorette, there have only been two plus-size contestants, prompting the Roses for Every Body campaign.)

Back in February, Gardner posted a TikTok about this very issue, explaining how she’s glad fat women aren’t included in love-based reality TV shows. “Not only would they not get picked like they do Black women,” she says in the video, “it would literally turn into how to lose weight, it’s going to turn into fitness 101 real quick. [Directors and producers] don’t know how to work with fat bodies. They think the only thing associated with fat is losing weight.”

@amandapleeze HOPE IT NEVER HAPPENS!!!! #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – I Must Meet Amanda!!

In a perfect world, everyone would be included in these shows. But the world isn’t perfect. Fat is still seen as undesirable and so fat people can’t find love until they’re thin, of course. Instead, they take side roles. “The reality is that we have so many people [who] tell stories of being the fat friend that guys avoid,” Gardner says in an interview with FASHION. “I don’t think it would be an enjoyable experience and I don’t think they’d find what they’re looking for.”

If fat women were included in reality dating shows, three things would happen, she continues: the most palatable fat women (read: white, small waist, flat stomach, big butt) would be cast, they wouldn’t get picked as love interests, and many media voices and viewers would have a fit, claiming the show was “promoting obesity.” We’ve seen it before. In season 2 of Love Is Blind, plus-size characters Chassidy Mickale and Hope Antoinello-Foley were included in previews and quickly dumped — but not before fielding crappy questions from their fellow contestants, like last season’s villain Abishek “Shake” Chatterjee who slyly asked Foley if she likes working out, presumably to rule out the fatties.

But there are television producers trying to do it right. Louise Green, a weight-neutral fitness instructor and author of Big Fit Girl, has been pitching her own reality show about fitness for all body types for two years, even meeting twice with one of the biggest subscription streaming services in the world. “At this point, we’re now in redevelopment because we can’t land a deal under the current concept,” she says. “People can’t wrap their head around an empowering show where people are challenging stereotypes without it being about weight loss.”

Aisha Fairclough, TV producer and co-founder of Body Confidence Canada, dedicates her time to advocating for body-size diversity in the unscripted world. One of her latest projects 1 Queen 5 Queers is proof of that. For her, it’s imperative to include fat folks in this space, but she says it’s up to the people behind the camera to make it happen. “[They] have to be diverse,” Fairclough says. “They have to be advocating in their writing; writing nuanced characters that ensure their storyline includes all aspects of their life,” not just their fatness.

“You have to make an effort to write casting calls that are inclusive, that will make somebody who isn’t a size eight feel they can apply,” Fairclough adds. But sadly, viewers at large are comfortable with not having their beliefs about fat people challenged. “We are often comfortable with these storylines because a lot of people see fat people as the underdog.” Society wants to believe in the fantasy that being thinner is better. Without a world in which this is true, how can we justify the lengths we go to bend to society’s standards of beauty, a constantly moving target that entire industries, careers and lives are built on? And who better to uphold that than a stereotyped fat character?

But Fairclough points to shows like Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Grand Crew, Thick House, Supersize Salon and BET’s First Wives Clubs as ones that do it right. By having size-diverse casts whose stories don’t hinge on their bodies and make “being fat” their only personality trait, we can celebrate them in their wholeness. In other words, Fairclough says, see fat people as actual human beings.

Everyone loves a good story. (I know I do.) When it comes to reality television, we know it’s not actually real. But shutting off our brains and going on a watching spree of our favourite reality show feels good. The characters are distilled into easy-to-digest packages, unlike the real world where people are complex, deep, and require thought and care. But viewers are asking for more. We want to see what’s real.

I want to see people who look like me being valued for who we are as people. We want our stories to be given the same depth afforded to thin people, and be seen as human beings who are desirable, deserving, and capable of love, rather than as a weight-loss project or a before photo. It’s time for reality TV to start reflecting — oh, I don’t know — reality. Because in the real world, outside of the fatphobic cultures we live in and the shows that tell us otherwise, we are. And that’s a damn good story.

The post <em>Love Is Blind</em>’s Attempt At Size Diversity Was a Flop appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Fans of The Crown got a delightful surprise on August 17 when Netflix released official images of the forthcoming season’s new cast members. Outtakes of the upcoming fifth season show stills of Dominic West, who will be playing Prince Charles, and Elizabeth Debicki, who will be Princess Diana — both looking appropriately pensive and glum. Naturally, we are getting increasingly excited for the new season and all the regency-core drama that will come along with it. From exciting casting news to the depiction of the royal family in more recent eras, here’s what you need to know about season 5 of The Crown.

Who will star in the upcoming season of The Crown?

The Crown has a habit of doing a complete cast overhaul every two seasons to represent the family at different stages in their lives. Season 3 and 4 were praised for appointing Josh O’Connor and Emma Corrin, who delivered an astonishingly similar portrayal of the real Charles and Diana. And despite switching up the actors for the upcoming season, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana is already anticipated to be another great choice, though, some are saying Dominic West is simply too attractive to be playing a realistic Prince Charles. Ouch.

Reprising the role of Queen Elizabeth II will be Imelda Staunton — known for her roles in Harry Potter and Downton Abbey. Netflix released a still of the actor in character, wearing a classic double string of pearls and looking on stoically, embodying the monarch’s calm and steady demeanour. The queen’s husband, Prince Philip, will be played by Jonathan Price, known from Game of Thrones and The Two Popes.

The new season will also feature Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, Claudia Harrison as Princess Anne, and Johnny Lee Miller as John Major, who was the U.K. Prime Minister from 1990 to 1997.

What is the plot of The Crown season 5?

The final two seasons of the drama series will follow the events that took place from the 1990s to the early 2000s — but will not portray present day happenings within the royal family. The fourth season ended with an unhappily married Charles and Diana, so the upcoming season will likely highlight their divorce in 1996 as well as the public exposure of Charles and Camilla’s affair. This time period also saw the divorces of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, as well as Princess Anne and Mark Phillips. The upcoming seasons are covering a dark era in the British royal family, from the terrible fire at Windsor Castle to the death of the Queen’s mother, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana in the subsequent years. Viewers are definitely in for some morose episodes throughout the final two seasons of The Crown.

When is the release date of The Crown season 5?

The fifth season of the drama series began filming in July 2021 and will be released for streaming on Netflix on November 9, 2022. And although a decision was made earlier this year to end The Crown after season 5, creator Peter Morgan changed his mind and later confirmed that there will be a sixth and final season after all.

The post Everything We Know About Season 5 of <Em>The Crown</Em> appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Thanks to her iconic role as Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise, Curtis is the original scream queen. And with the series’s final instalment, Halloween Ends, hitting theatres globally on October 14, she continues to set the bar for survivors in the horror genre.

The World Premiere Finale 44 years in the making. #HalloweenEnds FRIDAY. pic.twitter.com/MT7fHfi1Sg

— #HalloweenEnds (@halloweenmovie) October 13, 2022

At the red carpet premiere of Halloween Ends in Los Angeles, she emerged wearing a sparkling blood-red Ralph Lauren gown — the ultimate sartorial celebration. Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t even like scary movies, but as this striking ensemble suggests, there’s power in horror, and Curtis has learned just how to wield it.

The actor was only 19 years old when she made her feature film debut as the babysitter-turned-victim in the original 1978 Halloween, directed by John Carpenter. The thrasher follows Michael Myers, the notorious masked villain who embarks on a killing spree on October 31. One of his targets? Curtis’s Laurie Strode, a book-smart high school student — and lasting source of style inspiration.

With her fluffy ’70s blowout, preppy style, and down-to-earth demeanour, Laurie Strode was the textbook definition of horror’s “final girl” trope. She was the observant, virginal girl next door whose conservative traits allowed her to outsmart Michael Myers as her boy-crazy counterparts perished.

This performance set the tone for Jamie Lee Curtis’s Halloween-themed career. (Over the years, she has performed the role seven times.) Sure, she’s ventured outside the genre, working in classics like My Girl, Freaky Friday and, most recently, Everything Everywhere All At Once. But her lasting legacy is forever tied to the horror universe. By reprising, remaking and redefining what the “final girl” looks like, Jamie Lee Curtis has become a Halloween icon for multiple generations.

And now, with Halloween Ends, Curtis has reprised her role for one last time. The film marks the third and final instalment in David Gordon Green’s trilogy (including Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills (2021)), which is regarded as the original’s canonical successor. The series explores what happens to a horror protagonist after they survive, humanizing Laurie as an older, isolated alcoholic, grappling with the untreated trauma of the fateful Halloween night from her youth. This approach was record-breaking, with The New York Times reporting that the 2018 film had “the biggest opening for a horror movie with a female lead and for any film starring a woman over 55.”

Over the years, Laurie Strode evolves from a young, innocent every-girl to a grandmother seeking vengeance. She hardens, and there’s something empowering about that. After all, the traditional defining traits of the “final girl” — someone who is young, innocent and unsusceptible to vices — are not realistic. But as she ages, Laurie Strode becomes nuanced: she makes mistakes and stumbles through her struggles, all while narrowly escaping death (of course).

Halloween Ends reportedly offers some hope for Laurie’s fate after she goes to therapy and trauma counselling. Present-day Laurie is no longer the romanticized style symbol that she was in the original film, but she remains a survivor. And her enduring presence has left an impact on pop culture, with her personal resilience even being compared to larger social movements.

Jamie Lee Curtis, too, has been moved by her. “Everything good in my life can be traced back to Laurie,” she wrote in a recent essay published by People. “Life is scary, but Laurie taught me that life can also be beautiful, filled with love and art and life.”

The actor’s Halloween era may be coming to a close, but Jamie Lee Curtis will always be the horror icon of our time. Not least because, over 44 years, her portrayal of Laurie revealed the importance of growing, changing and fighting for yourself.

The post Jamie Lee Curtis Is Still the Queen of Halloween appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

The iconic series, which premiered in 2000, follows the close-knit relationship between mother-daughter duo Lorelai and Rory Gilmore. For seven seasons, the lovable, quirky pair — who are only 16 years apart — fumble through new relationships, career/school endeavours and hard-to-swallow personal lessons. Living in the fictional New England town of Stars Hallow, the main characters’ witty personalities and impeccable 2000s fall-weather fashion keep viewers coming back — especially as the temperature drops.

The yearly Gilmore Girls rewatch is a widely shared experience — a viral viewing pilgrimage, if you will — because of its inherent coziness. Soothing guitar riffs and “la la la” vocals bookend scenes. Comfort food and movie marathons are a staple of each episode. And over time, the show has become synonymous with quintessential autumnal pastimes like drinking coffee, reading a good book and wearing layered outfits. (For all intents and purposes, I’m referring to the original Gilmore Girls, not 2016’s A Year In The Life revival, which didn’t offer the sentimentality of its predecessor.)

As someone who never considered myself to be particularly fashionable growing up, Gilmore Girls offered an accessible entry point to dressing my best. That’s because the aesthetics of the show were, first and foremost, about being comfy (which I can definitely get behind). As a single-income household, Lorelai and Rory’s casual ensembles emitted a stylish thrift store effortlessness. Their early aughts outfits were comprised of cozy knits, knee-high boots and staple accessories like thin scarves, chokers and paisley bandanas. Best of all? Their DIY looks — often completed with a coffee cup or book in hand — felt lived in, and thus, achievable.

 

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Naturally, their styles evolved as they matured. After entering university, Rory opted for jeans and zip-up sweaters instead of her high-school uniform. And in later seasons, Lorelai swapped her psychedelic pattern T-shirts for wrap dresses. But through their growing pains and new phases of life, they always managed to have fun together. And notably, their outfits remained reliably laid-back, with them often mixing or re-wearing pieces. Unsurprisingly, all these years later, the show has become its own trendy aesthetic.

On Pinterest and TikTok, “Gilmorecore” mood boards are the epitome of early aughts autumnal style. Amid today’s 2000s fashion renaissance, Gilmore Girls–inspired outfits are more apropos than ever. Think low-rise bootcut jeans or midi skirts paired with noughties-era tops like sleeveless turtle necks, silk button-ups, empire waist blouses and any kind of knitwear. Mixing colours and patterns — like stripes, tie-dye and plaid —  is also perfectly welcome. And let’s not forget the jackets. Lorelai, specifically, had an impressive collection of leather trenches, penny lane coats and an endless variety of jean or corduroy outerwear pieces.

@ellieaddis some outfits inspired by lorelai gilmore from gilmore girls &lt3 this really is the best time of year 🧡🍂 #lorelaigilmore #gilmoregirls #gilmoregirlsoutfits #lorelaigilmoreoutfits #fallfashion #autumnfashion #autumnoutfits ♬ Where You Lead I Will Follow – Carole King

Along with its binge-worthy plot lines, the clothes in Gilmore Girls are both timeless and nostalgic. Through my years of watching and re-watching, the show has become a sartorial sanctuary that reminds me to find joy in the small things — whether it’s by tasting a good cup of coffee or burying myself in a gigantic sweater.

Of course, like many products of the early 2000s, Gilmore Girls had its problems. In recent years, it’s been criticized for lacking diversity and promoting classist talking points. (The 2016 revival arguably worsened this tone-deaf reputation.) But it’s the show’s cushy qualities that keep me (and many others) coming back. After all, Gilmore Girls, at its core, is a story about growing up. Lorelai and Rory aren’t perfect, sure, but they’re learning how to navigate life together.

For me, fall somehow manages to amplify the daunting aspects of adulting. When summer ends and a new school year begins, there’s a sense of responsibility in the air that forces me to re-evaluate where I’m at in my life. But just as the seasons have to change, newness is a necessary part of growth. And despite what’s going on in my life, channelling Gilmore Girls fashion always seems to make me feel a little bit more at home.

The post Why <Em>Gilmore Girls</Em> Is My Fall-Fashion Safe Space appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Based on Joyce Carol Oates’s 1999 fictional biography, the movie Blonde (directed by Andrew Dominik) is an aesthetic ode to Monroe’s image, not her real life. Starring Ana de Armas as the ’60s bombshell, it covers her ascension to stardom and the events that led to her untimely death.

“I’m not interested in reality, I’m interested in the images,” Dominik told the British Film Institute about the making of the movie. “So I selected every image of Marilyn I could find and then tried to stage scenes around those images.” Using these pictures and movie clips as inspiration, Dominik shot the film based on the way the world collectively remembers Monroe.

Amid its mostly fictional story, the film references reality by graphically portraying the real tragedies Monroe experienced. But by choosing to stay true to the exclusively sad parts of her life — her failed attempts at pregnancy, her struggles with substance use and the sexual violence she faced — Blonde has been criticized for further sensationalizing her already murky story.

Still, there’s one aspect of the film that sticks to reality: the wardrobe. Unlike the fictionalized plot, Blonde’s costumes are faithful replicas. Costume designer Jennifer Johnson reportedly studied Monroe’s outfits in films and photographs to understand exactly how each piece moved. The result? A sartorial ode to the actress’s iconic ensembles — from the hot pink gown featured in her performance of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” to the pleated white halter dress she wore to stand over the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch.

Whether intentional or not, this collision of fictional plot and realistic wardrobe becomes a commentary on our rose-coloured perception of the superstar, which has usurped any genuine interest in getting to know her. Blonde may be fiction. But so is our concept of Marilyn Monroe. The further away we move from her real-life existence, the more manufactured, hyper-glamourized and unattainable she becomes — and the less chance we have of ever knowing who she really was. As Emily Kirkpatrick writes in The Cut: “Monroe is no longer a person but a void that members of the public can fill with their own vague desires.”

In reducing Marilyn Monroe to a costume, Blonde reflects her modern status as a romanticized, mythical entity — which might just be the most meaningful depiction yet. After all, harsh truths often lie just beyond the flashiest distractions. Below, see the detailed costumes featured in Netflix’s Blonde.

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

Photography courtesy of Netflix

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The post The Most Realistic Part of <Em>Blonde</Em> Is the Costuming appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Filled with plenty of pettiness, campy costumes and suspenseful plot twists, Do Revenge turns the classic teen rom-com on its head. The story is set at a pretentious private school and follows the unlikely friendship between It Girl character Drea (Camila Mendes) and awkward new girl Eleanor (Maya Hawke). Like any healthy relationship, their bond is built on the quest for vengeance. Spoilers ahead.

In the film, Drea is seeking revenge on her ex-boyfriend. Eleanor, on the other hand, wants to take down Carissa, a former classmate who outed her and spread rumours that she was a predatory lesbian. To make this plan work, Drea suggests it’s time to give unassertive Eleanor a daring new look.

But the thing is, Eleanor’s not the happenstance newcomer she appears to be. Sure, when we meet her, she fits the mould of the mousy, unpopular kid. Sporting an oversized wardrobe, darker colours and a hat that reads, “I hate it here,” she stands out against a sea of preppy pastels. She even fights the idea of getting a makeover (classic!), saying “it feels so problematic,” to which Drea responds, “It is, but it’s fun!”

This exchange sets the stage for the film’s twist on the transformation trope, orchestrated by costume designer Alana Morshead. Unlike the teen movie makeovers of yore, Eleanor doesn’t adopt a Type-A popular-girl image. Where Drea’s wardrobe is ’90s-inspired, colour-coordinated and form-fitting, Eleanor’s new style is simply an elevated version of who she already is. Her long brown hair is cut and bleached. She trades in her muted colour palette for warm hues and floral patterns. But through it all, she holds onto her individuality — referencing ’60s fashion and staying true to her androgynous side with pantsuits, Bermuda shorts and overalls.

It’s a refreshing break from the carbon-copy makeover arc we’re used to. In Clueless, fashion expert Cher (Alicia Silverstone) moulds Brittany Murphy’s Tai into a brunette version of herself, with an added mean streak. And in Mean Girls, Cady (Lindsay Lohan) goes from being an outsider to a mini-skirt-donning villain to fit in with the Plastics.

With a rising social status and sense of superiority, time and time again, the newly transformed character becomes a high school tyrant. But Eleanor didn’t need a costume change to channel her conniving side. Because in Do Revenge, the makeover subject is actually the mastermind.

In the third act, we learn that Eleanor was not seeking revenge on her classmate, Carissa. She was actually targeting — wait for it — Drea. Turns out, Drea was the one who spread those rumours about Eleanor years ago, and Eleanor purposely befriended her to take her down. Herein lies the deeper symbolism of the makeover in Do Revenge.

At the start of the film, pre-makeover Eleanor hints at her plans for Drea with a cryptic inner monologue. “She doesn’t know it yet, but we’re about to become besties,” she quips.

After Eleanor’s true intentions are revealed in act three, her evil edge intensifies. She pledges to ruin Drea’s reputation. She threatens to plant drugs on Drea’s mom. She even hits Drea with her car, landing her in the hospital. To state the obvious, her bold new look didn’t create her aggressive side, it simply suited it well. By getting a makeover, she became even more herself.

The conclusion of the film also subverts the traditional makeover trope, wherein there’s an expectation that the character’s style will evolve once more after learning an important lesson. In the final scene of Mean Girls, Cady reverts to a pared-down wardrobe of jeans and a T-shirt. And in Clueless, Tai makes amends with Cher after adopting a neutral style that feels truer to her.

But at the end of Do Revenge, Eleanor doesn’t tone down her new look — she maintains it. And even though she and Drea make up, they never seem to fully learn their lessons. As such, their respective extravagant aesthetics complement their moral ambiguity, so why bother to change them? Instead, they choose to revel in their most OTT selves — in their fashion choices and in their lives. As Eleanor so eloquently puts it: “I’m a teenage girl. We’re psychopaths.”

The post <Em>Do Revenge</Em> Updates the Teen Makeover Trope appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

But the real star of Inside the Dream is a 4 kg emerald—a dark loaf-sized rock that has brilliant green veins of precious material trapped within it. The Jaipur gem dealer whose family has owned the 21,000-carat rough gem for more than 25 years tells Bulgari creative director Lucia Silvestri that he has never had a good enough reason to cut it. But Silvestri is determined to convince him the time is right, as she is looking for an outstanding stone that will become the centrepiece of a magnificent diamond necklace.

For much of the rest of the film, which launched on Amazon Prime Video on September 13, we follow Silvestri, who is possibly the only woman in the male-dominated jewellery world who buys roughs and sees them through to their final state: precious works of art. We see her at her desk in Rome with a pile of purple and pink stones, using tweezers to place them on a wax board to try out different necklace designs. We see her creative wheels spinning as she imagines a diamond snake holding a giant emerald in its mouth. And we see her meeting with laboratory technicians, as the idea in her head begins to take shape with fire and other lapidary tools.

Director Matthieu Menu, who previously worked on profiles of Yohji Yamamoto, Karl Lagerfeld and Simon Porte Jacquemus for an i-D magazine series called Hometown, also weaves in Bulgari history, from its founding by a Greek silversmith in 1884 to the 1960s when Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor discovered the Bulgari shop on days off from shooting at the Cinecitta studios in Rome, then insisted on wearing the purchases onscreen. “It was the original product placement and not only was it free, they paid us,” quipped Bulgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin prior to the screening at TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Jewellery and fashion lovers will appreciate the behind-the-scenes glimpses of campaign shoots and how a 4 kg rock transforms into a 93.83-carat cabochon for the Serpenti Hypnotic Emerald necklace on Zendaya in Venice. But good luck resisting the temptation to head to bulgari.com immediately after the film for a little retail reconnaissance. Silvestri’s own jewellery is a greatest hits of Bulgari design and you’ll be wanting to sell your car or condo to own your own viper ring or Roman coin necklace by the movie’s end.

The post Zendaya, and a 4 kg Emerald, Star in New Bulgari Film appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

For eight weeks, viewers witnessed her descent from a bourgeoning star to a clumsy sidekick. And now, it’s been confirmed that she will disappear from the show completely.

“After four years of getting to embody the most special and enigmatic character Kat, I’m having to say a very teary-eyed goodbye,” Ferreira wrote via Instagram on August 24. “I hope many of you could see yourself in her like I did and that [it] brought you joy to see her journey into the character she is today.”

But “the character she is today” — and the way she’ll be remembered after Ferreira’s exit — is not what fans saw coming. For months, rumours have alleged behind-the-scenes tension between Ferreira and showrunner Sam Levinson, after the actor reportedly expressed disappointment in Kat’s journey. And it’s not hard to see why. In season two, Euphoria missed out on making Kat the main character she should have been.

From her costuming alone, it’s clear Kat was originally set up to be front and centre of the series. As the only plus-size character, her stylistic transformation by costume designer Heidi Bivens was arguably the most significant.

She starts off season one with a modest teen wardrobe comprising skinny jeans, collared shirts and round glasses. As a result of the fatphobia she experienced growing up, she’s shy and insecure — almost as if she’s hiding behind her clothes.

But after a traumatizing sexual experience, Kat undergoes a metamorphosis. She leans into her hypersexualization and begins working as an underage cam girl. Her outlook hardens, and so does her style. As such, she adopts a gothic grunge aesthetic with leather harnesses, fishnet stockings, thick chokers and bold red lipstick.

Her rebellious change in style is not only a defence mechanism but a way of channelling her newfound fake-it-till-you-make-it confidence. Kat learns to take up space, stand up for herself, and dress in a way that makes her feel good. As she eloquently puts it, “There’s nothing more powerful than a fat girl who doesn’t give a f*ck.”

Makeovers in film and TV usually see women transform into the archetypal beauty of the thin girl next door. By adopting a subversive punk style and unapologetically embracing her body, Kat’s transformation flipped the script on this trope. Unsurprisingly, she gained a cult following of fans who were eager to see her develop and mature. And Levinson was praised for writing a three-dimensional plus-size character who wasn’t a villain, a punchline or a boring background fixture. But then, without explanation, Kat Hernandez became all three.

In season two, Ferreira’s character is reduced to a well-dressed extra in the Euphoria visual landscape. Her style shifts from bondage-inspired to ’90s cool girl. She trades her suspenders and latex for cropped cardigans, busy patterns and midi skirts. While this style change could have represented her maturing, Kat loses her rebellious edge and reverts to being insecure and inauthentic.

In one particularly hard-to-watch scene, she coldly breaks up with her boyfriend, Ethan, by claiming to have a (non-existent) terminal brain disorder. It’s clear she’s going through something, but her emotions are left unexplored, which just makes her look callous.

Confidence and self-love are not linear. But Kat’s regression feels less like a thoughtful commentary on teen existentialism and more like sloppy TV writing. In an interview with The Cut, Ferreira remarked on her character’s invisibility, saying, “Kat’s journey this season is a little more internal and a little mysterious to the audience. She is secretly going through a lot of existential crises.” Unfortunately, we’ll never know what they were.

Regardless of her flaws, Kat was important. After all, Euphoria is a show of It Girls, and for so long in media, plus-size women haven’t had a seat at the proverbial popular table. Kat Hernandez, with her quick wit, experimental style and confident quirks, was changing that. And she deserved so much more.

The post Justice for Kat from <Em>Euphoria</Em> appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Ramakrishnan is the first to admit she’s personally evolved from the 17-year-old kid who debuted in the Mindy-Kaling-created show three years ago, acting chops included. Devi is also maturing, while being tested with more dating drama. 

If last season had Devi deciding between two love interests, Paxton (Darren Barnet) and Ben (Jaren Lewison), this season has fans further divided with Des, the hot new brown boy in town, played by Anirudh Pisharody. He challenges the stereotype of being a boring, geeky-looking South Asian nerd — in fact, Devi wrongly presumes that too until she sets her sights on him. 

We caught up with Ramakrishnan to discuss season three, reconnecting with South Asian culture and how Devi has influenced her own style.

Devi is really tested this season. How would you describe season three?

Season one was about grief and then season two was about mental health. I think season three is definitely about self-love and self-respect for all the characters. Devi more so than anyone. 

How did you feel about exploring Devi’s journey this time around?

I think what I like about it is that she has grown. She’s doing things that she would have never done in season one… She’s really matured [and yet] she’s still up to the same kind of shenanigans. Like her MO is still there and she’s still a menace, but I think it’s nice to see her grow and take on new ways of coping with stress because it helps me as an actor to explore different avenues of the mind of this character.

How parallel is that for you since you took on this character?

From 17 to now 20, I feel like I’ve grown the most I ever have in my life. Just like Devi is growing immensely as a TV character does… I would say my life has definitely changed. I’m not the same person I was. 

I love how the show dives into South Asian traditions every season. How did you reconnect with new cultural traditions this time around?

Having Ranjita [Chakravarty, who plays Devi’s grandmother Nirmala] around, I love her to death. Anytime I’m in a scene with her, I get very happy. This season, we have a whole Navratri [Hindu festival] episode, which is really cool. Anytime I get to work with costumes to create a new half-sari look, I get very excited. I know back in season one, when we did the half-sari look and a lot of fans really appreciated that because it wasn’t just a generic South Asian outfit or even a generic lehenga, or like a full sari, because that wouldn’t really make sense for a young girl. We made it specific for Devi, and we got to take another stab at it in season three. 

 

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Devi has an interesting taste in fashion. How is your own personal taste in fashion compared with hers?

Devi and I honestly have very two different senses of fashion. Especially at the beginning of Never Have I Ever, I personally was someone who never wore colour. I really liked to stay away from colour for the most part. I still struggle to like match prints and stuff. Devi is on the whole other side of all the colour and all the accessories and necklaces and plaid and polka dots… But I will say that she has opened up colour for me. I think because I got to play around on set with different styles, I got to bring a little bit into my own life, but I still think I’m a little cooler than Devi. 

 

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What’s your favourite look for Devi this season?

That’s a good question… I’m going to say the  children’s performer outfit just because it was funny. The blue, red and yellow. I like that. I thought that was nice. But while we’re here, I want to just say my favourite outfit of the entire show is definitely when I got to dress up like a boy to sneak back into school to apologize to an Aneesa. That was my favourite. No one really asks me this and I love to talk about it because that was awesome. 

One of the episodes deals with Devi being trolled. I’m curious, with the success and fame that has come with the show, how do you deal with trolls?

I do not try and seek out who the troll is. I try not to go on a whole investigation to figure out who the trolls are. I like to just let them be and let them do their thing. Just like Devi, you do get a little bothered by a troll…. [but] I don’t give them attention because they’re not worthy of your attention. I think it’s just better for me and my mental health. I tried to take Paxton’s advice. As Paxton said, “Just leave it. Who cares?”

The last episode is titled ‘Never Have I Ever Lived the Dream.’ What is the most surreal moment for you after you’ve had this iconic role playing Devi?

I think it’s everything that has happened to me so far. I never thought I would be an actor, let alone like you know, the lead of a hit Netflix show. Crazy. So I think because of that I didn’t even have this as a dream. Like it was never in the cards. But now I realize I am living the dream—a dream I just didn’t realize I could even make possible. So there’ve been a lot of surreal moments whether it’s press junkets like this or crazy photoshoots where I get to try on extravagant outfits. But if I had to boil it down, I would say for me, it’s [not just one moment but] every day I get to be on set. Nothing beats that feeling for me.

Just like John McEnroe does the voiceover for Devi, who would be the voice artist of your life?

I wish I had a better, funnier answer. But I only have a legitimate answer, that’s a little wholesome and that’s Mindy. I would really want Mindy. I mean, she’s seen me grow up now. She’s seen me grow up from that 17-year-old who walked in for her audition to now. And I feel like she would do a good job. She would definitely nail the comedic timing.

The post <em>Never Have I Ever</em>’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan on Season 3, Self-Love and ‘Brown Boy’ Stereotypes appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Whether it was glorifying teacher-student relationships or mishandling mental health, Pretty Little Liars peddled many questionable narratives (and I say this as a fan). But perhaps its greatest downfall was the way the show’s bad writing and ill-suited costumes ruined its most interesting character, Alison DiLaurentis.

In her heyday, Alison had a quartet of loyal followers who both enabled and fell victim to her cruelty. So when she went missing at the start of the series, her friends were harassed by “A,” who sought vengeance for her crimes.

After two failed spinoffs, HBO’s Original Sin brings the franchise back to life. Based on five girls who are haunted by their mothers’ teenhood mistakes, the show taps into PLL nostalgia by including an anonymous menace who goes by “A.” But this time around, the five main characters are loveable outcasts, not complicit popular girls. This is a drastic change from the 2010 series.

Alison DiLaurentis is arguably the most iconic teen tyrant of all time. If put in a room with other terrifying high schoolers like Mean Girls’ Regina George and Euphoria’s Maddy Perez, season one Alison would be the one to drive all others to tears. At 15 years old (Pieterse was only 13), Alison was not just a schoolyard bully, she was an evil maniacal legend who blackmailed half of Rosewood. She was always the centre of attention, and her outfits reflected this.

In the early seasons, Alison had a distinct trendy style with bright colours, feminine silhouettes and statement accessories. Even when she was manipulating her friends, she exuded charm and charisma.

But part-way through the series, Alison began to change — and not in a good way. After returning to Rosewood, she embarked on an unconvincing character arc. She began wearing muted colours, baggier shapes and more matronly outfits comprising blazers, conservative blouses, oversized cardigans and out-of-place cartoonish designs (like this puppy dog sweater, for some reason).

This stark change in her fashion sense suspiciously fell in line with Sasha Pieterse’s weight gain as a result of her condition, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Looking back, it seems the costume department had trouble (or didn’t put effort into) dressing someone who wasn’t a size two.

Alongside her bland wardrobe, Alison went through a personality transplant. For starters, she lost power over her friend group. Though still selfish and untrustworthy, she lacked the magnetic spark that made her an intriguing antagonist. In the early seasons, Alison was unapologetic about who she was. But as the series progressed, she didn’t seem to stand for anything, not even her villainy.

 

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From making fatsuits a punchline to constantly writing plus-size characters as undesirable, Hollywood is rampant with fatphobia. And Pretty Little Liars is an unfortunate example. By taking away her sense of style as her body changed, the show perpetuated the harmful idea that to be a fashionable “it” girl, you have to be thin.

Pretty Little Liars had a tendency to trivialize serious topics. From making binge-eating a running gag among characters to including flippant comments about starvation, the show missed out on opportunities to meaningfully engage with the complexities of body image — and such was the case with Alison DiLaurentis. While we can’t rewrite the franchise’s history, we can improve its legacy.

Original Sin is already being praised for putting a modern twist on the irresistible mystique of the original show. It reportedly replaces Pretty Little Liars’ campier aspects with slasher tropes and a more diverse friend group.

As for Alison DiLaurentis? They don’t make mean girls like her anymore — and maybe that’s a good thing. Despite her botched redemption and her unfair loss of style agency, to me, she will forever be the most cunning queen bee on TV. And for that, I respect her.

The post How <Em>Pretty Little Liars</Em> Failed Alison appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Berry’s ambitious and over-eager personality made her something of an outcast, but her talent was undeniable. So, when news broke that Michele would be usurping the role of Funny Girl’s Fanny Brice on Broadway, gleeks new and old were transported back to the William McKinley High School choir room. It seems we’re living in a real life episode of Glee, and Rachel Berry is still the main character.

Funny Girl opened in 1964 with Barbra Streisand as the lead, but it wasn’t until this year that the show’s Broadway revival would begin with Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart; Lady Bird) playing Fanny Brice. The decision to cast Feldstein, a plus-size actor, was celebrated as groundbreaking. But her time on Broadway has been cut short.

Following lacklustre reviews of Feldstein’s performance (some argue that fatphobia played a role in this scrunity), the actor posted a cryptic message announcing her departure on July 10. “Once the production decided to take the show in a different direction, I made the extremely difficult decision to step away sooner than anticipated.”

The following day, it was announced that Lea Michele would be taking the part. It’s possibly the most meta casting of the decade — here’s why.

 

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As the self-proclaimed best member of the glee club, Michele’s Rachel Berry had a few defining characteristics: her take-no-prisoners competitiveness, her rigid ambition and her undying obsession with Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice. Funny Girl’s “Don’t Rain On My Parade” was Berry’s unofficial anthem and she went on to star in a Broadway revival in the final seasons of the show. Lea Michele, too, has been itching to play Fanny Brice for years. When she posted the casting announcement on July 11, she wrote: “A dream come true is an understatement.”

Glee creator Ryan Murphy wrote Berry with Michele in mind, and throughout the show’s run, she was suspiciously good at playing the high-strung character. With Feldstein’s exit, life continues to imitate art. But it’s not just Michele’s debut in the Broadway show that feels like a Murphy-esque plotline — it’s also the departure of Glee actor Jane Lynch.

During the show’s six-season run, Lynch played Coach Sue Sylvester, a tracksuit-clad villainous gym teacher who would stop at nothing to destroy the musical group. Equal parts pure evil, walking meme and occasional hero, Sylvester embodied the chaos of Glee. Lynch, who plays the role of Fanny Brice’s mother in the Broadway production, will now be leaving the show one day prior to Michele’s arrival. Coincidence? We think not. The real-life situation mimics a scene in Glee — episode 17 of season five, to be exact — in which Sue walks out during Berry’s opening Funny Girl performance.

In Glee, Berry’s diva tendencies made her unpopular. And in recent years, the curtain has been pulled back on Michele’s similarly unflattering reputation. To recap, the actor faced backlash in 2020 when she tweeted in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, sparking several of her former co-workers to speak out about her cruelness to them.

Notably, her former Glee co-star Samantha Ware, who is Black, tweeted that Michele had made her life a “living hell” on set and accused her of “traumatic microaggressions” that made Ware question a career in Hollywood. It led to a tepid notes app apology from Michele, and since then, she’s kept a relatively low profile. Until now. On July 11, Ware tweeted in response to the casting news, saying in part that “Broadway upholds whiteness.”

Despite her meanness, Glee always sent the message that Lea Michele — err, Rachel Berry — was born for stardom, and that she was going to achieve it no matter what.  And here we are, all these years later. Lea Michele is Rachel Berry-ing. Jane Lynch is pulling an iconic Sue Sylvester stunt. And somehow, it feels like Ryan Murphy is writing the script for the whole situation. As for the viewers, we’re still living for the drama like it’s a Wednesday night in 2009.

And that’s what you missed on Glee.

The post The <Em>Funny Girl</Em> Drama is the <Em>Glee</Em> Spin-Off No One Wanted appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

To say I was a Barbie fan growing up is to put it mildly — I lived and breathed hot pink. On any given day, you could see dozens of dolls lining my bedroom floor, interspersed with small clothing and even smaller shoes, resembling a colourful explosion of plastic and fabric. But a few years after I graduated from toys to tampons, Barbie became uncool. And not just because I was now a “grown-up” (trust me, no one feels more grown-up than a teenage girl), but because the world seemed to turn on her, and they were kind of right.

It’s no secret that the traditional Barbie bod is unrealistic. In fact, according to Medical Daily, if Barbie was real, she wouldn’t be able to walk upright because her height, weight, waist and bust size are too disproportionate. Also, trying to hold anything with those fused fingers and unbendable arms would be a nightmare.

So when the early 2010s saw the beginnings of the body positivity movement, Barbie was (understandably) one of the first pop culture icons to take a hit. Multiple studies around that time explored Barbie’s negative impact on young girls’ body expectations and self-esteem. Research also revealed how the toy perpetuated the feminine beauty ideal of a young, thin, straight, white, cis-gendered woman with blond hair and excluded the other 99 per cent of the population. Simply put, Barbie hadn’t evolved since the 1950s, and that was a problem.

But when the first photo of Gerwig’s Barbie movie was released in April, the internet lost its mind and seemingly its memory. No one appeared to care so much anymore about the problematic body standards or the lack of diversity that ruled the conversation 10 years ago. Instead, nostalgia beat out the naysayers, and social media was abuzz with praise of the personification of the doll.

So what changed? Well, a few things.

First, the 2000s are cool again. CDs are making a comeback. The Miu Miu miniskirt went viral. And toxic body ideals are finding a new home on TikTok, thanks to Gen Z. Nostalgia is running rampant, and the wish to return to a childlike state can also be thought of as a reaction to these uncertain pandemic times.

Also, in fairness to Mattel, the company that produces Barbies, the brand has worked hard to address the criticism. In 2016, they released four new body types; original, tall, petite and curvy. In 2019, it introduced more natural and braided hairstyles. And in May 2022, they released a new “Fashionista” line featuring a doll with a prosthetic leg, a hearing aid and a Ken with the skin condition vitiligo.

Then, the choice to have Greta Gerwig at the movie’s helm was a brilliant PR move. A burgeoning feminist film icon, the director has been a vocal advocate for more women in leadership roles in the industry and has been the driving force behind successful women-led projects such as 2016’s Lady Bird and the modern adaptation of Little Women in 2019.

And according to internet murmurs, Gerwig’s Barbie movie will not shy away from the issues with the blond-haired doll but embrace them. It’s rumoured that Barbie (Robbie) and Ken (Gosling) will somehow find themselves outside of Barbieland and in the real world. While Barbie struggles with her new reality, Ken thrives in it (because, of course) as the Mattel CEO (Ferrell) tries to bring them back home. But even though we can’t confirm the accuracy of this plotline, we can confirm that the costumes are already living up to the Barbie legacy. From Ken’s “Ken” brand boxers to the matching neon rollerblading outfits and the bedazzled cowboy ensembles, the camp is being served on a hot pink platter, and we are all eating it up!

 

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And that’s okay. Being excited about the Barbie movie doesn’t make you less of a feminist or a body positivity advocate. The key is being aware of the good and the bad. Toys and films are a form of escapism and rarely actually reflect reality. Do I wish I looked more like Margot Robbie? Of course! I’m only human. But do I also acknowledge she has a team of nutritionists, trainers, beauticians and stylists whose sole purpose is to make her look as perfect as possible? Also, yes. Like Barbie, she’s a fantasy, and fantasies aren’t real. And as we might soon learn on the big screen, life in plastic might not be so fantastic anyways.

The post When Did It Become Cool Again to Like Barbie? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

“It’s an entry level job. Buck up,” Tony says.

“Right. Focus on the good times,” Anthony replies. “Isn’t that what you said one time? Try and remember the times that were good?”

Tony appears appreciative of his son’s new outlook as they share a bowl of onion rings. We see Meadow run toward the diner when the camera cuts to our protagonist. The bell above the door chimes and, as we all know by now, the screen fades to black.

While the debate over whether Tony lived or died in that moment raged on for years (creator David Chase let it slip in an interview last year with The Hollywood Reporter that this was, indeed, a death scene), truthfully, I’ve never cared much —I just want to remember the good times.

The Sopranos is undeniably one of the greatest shows ever made. Since its premiere in 1999, the HBO drama’s depiction of the Italian-American mafia through the lens of North Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano has never found itself far from the public consciousness. But arguably, thanks to costume designer Juliet Polca, the fashion on The Sopranos was just as pioneering.

 

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Interviews with Polca are few and far between, but her suburbanization of late ’90s-early 2000s mobster attire was as much of a scene-stealer as the actors themselves. And decades after the show’s premiere, our nostalgia for the styles of that period has brought a new appreciation for her work.

I mean, between Carmela’s perfectly put together Catholic mafia wife outfits to Christopher Moltisanti’s (Michael Imperioli) tracksuits to Adriana La Cerva’s (Drea de Matteo) body-hugging animal prints, what’s not to love? Even simple pieces — like Tony’s wifebeater-boxer-robe combination to the patterned button-ups worn by the wiseguys — brought a level of authenticity matched only by the writing and cast. And let’s be honest, Tony was rocking the oversized leather jacket since before it was cool.

And so, in honour of the 15 year anniversary of The Sopranos iconic finale (which aired June 10, 2007), we present a roundup of fashion from the show.

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

Photography courtesy of Getty images

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The post An Ode to <em>The Sopranos</em> Fashion appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Season five of Netflix’s Selling Sunset (which follows the agents working for the Oppenheim Group, a luxury brokerage in Los Angeles) had mixed reviews. The storylines were clearly contrived, hard to follow and at the center of it all was Christine Quinn.

So after an unexciting season and awkward reunion (which she did not attend), Quinn would like us all to know that she’s not actually the villain, she’s just playing one. But she’s not the hero either. The true evil doer? For Quinn, that appears to be Adam Divello, the mastermind behind Selling Sunset and The Hills.

“I’m a character. Yes, I’m myself, I’m outspoken, I say what I want, but at the end of the day, it’s a show,” she told Cooper. “People need to realize that.”

Off-camera, she’s focused on her baby, her husband, building her own brokerage and the release of her book, How to Be a Boss B*tch. As for us, the viewer, does the truth really matter when it all makes for good TV? Christine Quinn and Cooper discuss this and more in their interview, and we’ve compiled all the most interesting tidbits from their conversation below.

She’s received a lot of hate since Selling Sunset

“I received a flood of hate…People were saying, ‘You’re such a horrible person, go die.’ I received so many threats against my own life. People think this is real, but reality is just an illusion.”

She manifested her reality TV career

“I grew up watching The Real World, the Kardashians, VH1, MTV…I was the only person [at the Oppenheim Group] that was on board to do the show. Everyone was like, ‘We shouldnt do this, it’s going to tarnish our reputation.’”

Her Selling Sunset character is intentional

“It’s all about being remembered, giving the audience a feeling, whether that is a feeling of power, intrigue or even hate towards me. I will be remembered, that’s my goal the entire time…Everything is completely intentional. This is a show, I’m going to put on a show.”

She was cast as the show’s villain

“We did work in the office everyday together, we loved each other, we had so much fun, it was a great relationship. Then cameras got involved.

“We were approached that [the show] was going to be [about] women empowerment, women in business, working together in real estate. And then it wasn’t that way at all. It all spiraled…I think the girls along the way had a really hard time because they started thinking it was real…A lot of me is on the editing room floor.”

She was always planning to leave the Oppenheim Group

“When we were filming season five, my husband and I had been working on a company for a year and a half called Real Open. I told production going into it, ‘Listen, I’m leaving the Oppenheim Group, you guys know that, so let’s get creative with the storylines and let me talk about my own brokerage,’ which they completely edited out, because that’s not a convenient storyline.

“So, you see in season five where everyone’s like, ‘Christine needs to leave the office’…And Jason’s like, ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong.’ Insert fake bribery storyline.”

 

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She gets paid the most

“There’s three different tiers. I get paid the most, amongst Jason as well…That wasn’t the decision of production or anything like that. That was me with my entertainment attorney basically saying, ‘This is my value.’”

Producers instigate drama between the girls

“They’ll have someone say, ‘Oh my gosh, Christine just said this about you in a previous scene.’ And they come to me and say, ‘Chelsea said this about you in a previous scene.’ So, they set up these scenarios which instigate our emotions intentionally… They do everything they can to amp the girls up.

“It is a male dominated industry in the production field to which they manipulate women, they harass women, they mentally tortue and intimidate them.”

Is Adam Divello the real villain? She thinks so

“I want to clarify here. It’s Adam Divello. Adam Divello is the one who owns the production company (Done and Done Productions), which is the same one that did The Hills and made Heidi [Montag] and Spencer [Pratt] look like they were crazy. It’s all dependent on who’s producing the show. And we have to look at what Adam Divello has done as a whole, as a human being… There’s been complaints filed against him, multiple complaints. He actually told me to go fall down the stairs and kill myself at one point…In the context of me being too honest.

“That wasn’t the first complaint I filed against him. There was another complaint where to this day he cannot step foot on set with any of the women in the office because…there was inappropriate sexual misconduct, and Heidi filed a claim as well against him. This stuff does go on….And he has shown retaliatory behaviour towards me ever since.”

 

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Dubbing was used by producers

At one point in the interview, Christine Quinn plays a clip from the show. Heather Rae El Moussa’s voice can be heard saying, “You’ve said comments about Chrishell [Stause] sleeping with Jason [Oppenheim] when she was still married and you know that’s bullshit.” Quinn is then heard saying, “Oh my god, that’s hilarious. Yeah, I did say that. That’s true.”

“Heather never even brought that up in the scene,” Quinn told Cooper, before playing another clip where Rae El Moussa is instead heard saying, “You said he’s always had good taste in women but I guess that’s not true anymore.”

“The first scene…accused me of confirming infidelity which was dubbed over by production,” Quinn explained.

The Christine Quinn-Chrishell Stause feud is real

“I feel like she came into the office and immediately, the girls and I, we had no problems but because she didn’t like me and I was a threat in her mind she turned all the girls against me and that’s really where that came from.

“I never see her, I don’t have any hate or ill will towards her at all.”

The post Christine Quinn is Just Playing the Villain appeared first on FASHION Magazine.