FASHION Magazine

After Kate Middleton thrilled the world with her poise, grace and style during pregnancy this summer, the bar got raised real high for what an ever-expanding waistband means for pregnant women everywhere. For those of the fashionable cloth, it posed a welcome challenge: Look perfect while feeling your worst. Happily, it seems for six Toronto […]

The post Pregnancy style: 6 women share fashion and beauty tips for ever-changing bodies appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

With a month long of Fall 2013 fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris coming to a close and Toronto Fashion Week just revving up, our mental shopping notes are already full with all the new things we want added to our closet. Heeled oxfords! Mini globes! Next level grunge! Most mere mortals will have to wait at least six months for Fall 2013’s newness to hit the ground floor, but we’ve found a few ways to get in on the trends you’re drooling over right now. The best part? You won’t be spending a dime. From Prada’s ever-clever fur and gingham combo to Chanel’s necklace-over-hair combo, our very own editors are showing you 5 chic and easy ways to get on your favourite Fall 2013 trends ASAP.

View FASHION’s 35th anniversary party photos »
Check out our archive of every FASHION cover since 1977 »

What’s better than a birthday party? Your own birthday party! On Wednesday night, the FASHION team (well, that’d be us) celebrated the magazine’s 35^th anniversary, and as you might expect, Toronto’s most stylish guys and gals were out in full force. 700 of our closest friends packed into the Distillery’s Fermenting Cellar to toast us with Skyy Vodka cocktails, mini burgers and musical performances by Divine Brown and The Parallels.

It should come as no surprise that during financial downturns, people tend to tighten their purse strings. What is surprising, however, is a spending phenomenon called the “lipstick effect,” which is a cute way of describing how women surprisingly spend more on beauty products during recessions. For example, did you know that L’Oréal was one of the few companies to experience growth in 2008? When all other sectors were approaching rock bottom, the beauty market was actually thriving.

Up until this point, most speculated that women were opting for beauty buys because they’re cheaper ways of splurging. However, a recently released study seems to have scientifically debunked this notion. According to the study’s findings, when it comes down to it women are less “recessionistas” than they are “recession mate hunters,” at least on a subconscious level.

Essentially, the scientists found that in keeping with ancient times (when finding a mate was of paramount importance, especially during environmentally taxing periods) the modern-day hunt for a mate is put into subconscious overdrive when the economy takes a nosedive.

In other words, as the number of gainfully employed men dwindles, women are drawn to beauty products to up their physical attractiveness, making them more viable competitors for those few eligible bachelors. This trend even extends to advertising: slogans that hinted at a “catch-a-mate” function fared better than those that were more neutral.

Though this sounds a bit (a lot) like gold-digging, apparently, it’s not — according to the study, the women’s own resource needs (i.e. money in the bank) didn’t play a part in their draw to beauty products. In fact, the lipstick trend seems to just be a byproduct of an adaptive evolutionary tactic that’s been around for years: the most desirable females were often the most beautiful, while the most sought-after men were usually well-equipped to provide for their mate and offspring.

Sexist? Well, unintentionally, yes it is a bit sexist. But it’s food for thought: are evolutionary tactics still permeating our modern-day existence? Or did the researchers fail to take into account other factors, like the cross-gender effect of a little retail therapy during bad times? Also, how many women can rely solely on beauty products to enhance their appearance? What about gym memberships, cosmetic surgery, and the like — do women spend more on them during recessions as well?

After coming under fire for a swimsuit campaign featuring a darkly bronzed Isabeli Fontana, Swedish retail giant H&M has released an apology.

“We are sorry if we have upset anyone with our latest swimwear campaign. It was not our intention to show off a specific ideal or to encourage dangerous behaviour, but was instead to show off our latest summer collection,” they said in an email to AFP. “We have taken note of the views and will continue to discuss this internally ahead of future campaigns.”

Gone are the days of teenage style icons (okay, maybe not the eternally best-dressed Fanning sisters), when Britney Spears’ plaid miniskirts were the norm. A British study by retailer CC has found that a woman reaches her sartorial prime at age 35. Three out of four women felt their style improved after their 20s with one in three women saying they looked the best they ever had in their 30s.

What gives? Apparently it all comes down to self-confidence, wisdom and maturity. Empowered mid-30-year-olds know how to reference the latest trends with enough confidence to carry them off.

So naturally, we made a list of our personal style icons (think: Chloë Sevigny, Kate Lanphear, Vanessa Paradis, the list goes on) and found that—shocker—they’re all around 35.

And it doesn’t stop at 35. Arguably the best part of this whole study was that iconoplast Helen Mirren beat out Kate Middleton (another 30-year-old) as the celebrity woman most considered to be in her prime. She’s 66! We can’t say we’re surprised though—have you seen her in a bikini? She’s a total knockout.

It’s high time we recognize the style contributions of the mature set. The success of blogs like Advanced Style has shown that style doesn’t fade with age. We aspire to dress like those women. Just look at two of M.A.C’s most recent collections: Carine Roitfeld and Iris Apfel. Both mature ladies and both with closets we’d gladly dive into.

“C’mon guys, you know it’s better to be skinny than to be fat.” Or so says Natalia Vodianova, who accidentally stuck her foot in her mouth with said comment over the weekend during a Vogue Festival panel discussion with fellow models Jourdan Dunn, Eva Herzigova and Lily Cole.

The sound bite has since been touted as the new “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” (Kate Moss famously said that years ago) despite the fact that Vodianova quickly clarified her comments by saying it was unhealthy to be obese.

To further clear things up, the Russian supermodel took to her Facebook page last night in a post titled “VOGUE FESTIVAL and WORLD ECONOMY S.” (IN HER HASTE SHE FORGOT TO TURN OFF CAPS LOCK.) Vodianova apologized, saying the light atmosphere of the panel prompted her comments and that they had been taken out of context. She then went on to suggest that perhaps our perception of body image didn’t fall solely on the shoulders of the modelling industry but also on those of food industry/beauty industry/diet pill industry/book industry—essentially, everyone:

“…there are other industries that might be even more to blame like food industry that constantly reinventing ways of pushing food on us. Makes people stuff fridges with food, buying pills, millions of books on diets, shopping for the right clothes to hide those extra few pounds, beauty products. I guess some would say that’s what makes our economy go around. Yes, I choose to do more and eat less. Sorry world economy, I am a bad client!”

Body image is a complex issue that needs to be addressed on multiple levels.  But while we do believe her comments were sensationalized, whose comments aren’t in this day and age? It’s a good segue into the ongoing discussion about models’ rights, to be sure, but next time, Vodianova may want to tread just a touch more carefully.

This week, we take you inside the zipped croc Marc by Marc Jacobs purse belonging to our lovely beauty editor, Sarah Daniel. She claims that the bag was her first foray into grownup shopping, but we find that hard to believe, given her assortment of beautiful and hard-to-find products, like a sample bottle of perfume that’s got its creator’s handwritten labelling. Oh, and that book she’s reading? The recommendation came from India Hicks. No biggie.

Let’s explore! »