FASHION Magazine

See our statement ring picks » Just in time for New Year’s Eve, we’re rounding up this season’s crop of digitized statement-makers. No, we’re not talking about the iPhone 6, we’re talking this selection of larger-than-life rings. What better way to ring in 2015 than with a big honkin’ piece of frosting.

The post Statement rings: 4 trends, 20 eye-catching picks appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

We quiz skin experts who ski on tried-and-true tactics for protecting their delicate dermis from the elements.

Jump to: DR. JESSICA WU, DERMATOLOGIST | KATE SOMERVILLE, FACIALIST AND FOUNDER OF KATE SOMERVILLE SKINCARE | DR. FRANCESCA FUSCO, DERMATOLOGIST

When you think of luxury items, certain things come to mind: cars, jewellery, handbags…soap? This holiday, you could give the gift of Clé de Peau Synactif soap for a cool $100 or, if your budget is more modest, a $28 Chanel No 5-scented bar. These prices put bar soap squarely in the realm of objet—clearly not Dial territory. But it brings up the question: Who even uses bar soap anymore? Nearly 70 per cent of Canadians don’t, according to market research, and that number is growing. Body wash has become our cleanser of choice.

When and how did this humble workhorse fall so far out of favour? It’s certainly come a long way from its noxious past. Soap recipe, circa 1600s: Throw some animal fat, lye and ash into a big pot, boil, let it harden, carve off a chunk, and enjoy your quarterly bath. It wasn’t until the 1800s that it was sold at stores. “The soap manufacturers of that era were the first really lavish advertisers,” says Lori Loeb, a professor of history at the University of Toronto. “They marketed soap as a luxury product.”

The real shift in bathing was the notion that everybody should do it regularly. “By the 1840s, public health advocates were saying that people should have a bath at least once a week,” Loeb says. “The idea that we should bathe every day, and especially the idea that we should take a shower, is a product of the 1950s and 1960s and the affluence after World War II. Showering is very new.” Cut to 1992, when low-flow showerhead regulations were introduced in the U.S., which drastically lowered water usage and bills for most households.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, born on Aug. 19, 1883, was a true Leo. Bronze and marble lions litter the interior of 31 Rue Cambon, where she spent her life; in Lausanne, where she now lies, five lions sit etched on her tombstone. Beginning in the 1920s, the buttons of her soft tweed suits often bore symbols, including lion’s heads, and, as befits her leonine birthright, those suits won her king-sized fame. And yet, in the ’30s, Chanel found herself eclipsed by a Virgo.

Elsa Schiaparelli, born on Sept. 10, 1890, spent her childhood surveying the heavens. Her uncle, Giovanni, was a well-known astronomer, and it was he who pointed out that the moles on her face formed the constellation Ursa Major. In Schiaparelli’s 1938 Zodiac collection, the constellation glitters over the left shoulder of a blue velvet jacket that’s as lushly bizarre as Chanel tweeds are classic. Together, she and Chanel set up fashion’s organizing dichotomy—high art or expensive habit?—and they remain the century’s most important couturiers.

They loathed each other. Schiaparelli referred to commercial, streetwise Chanel as “that milliner,” while Chanel called the surreally cool Schiap “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” In fact, besides talent and mutual disdain, the only thing these two had in common was a belief in the very system that best explains their differences.

See our New Year’s Eve dressing picks »

There’s no time like the holiday season to bring on the bling in shiny metallics. On the runway, Marc Jacobs did it best in a gown (pictured above) laden with silver sequins. And for those other precious metals, we’re looking to Dolce & Gabbana, where tone-on-tone texture and all over patterns add a new dimension to the gold standard.

It’s a sunny day in Tokyo and a group of anime princesses and warriors are becoming uncomfortably warm in their latex and polyester costumes. They’re “cosplay” enthusiasts leading a group of tourists through Akihabara, the area known for attracting those into otaku culture, characterized by an obsessive interest in anime, manga or video games. During a pit stop at a “maid cafe,” hostesses in frilly French maid outfits (a popular strain of anime character) pour blue and green sodas and perform J-pop numbers. Do they dress differently after work? “Oh, this isn’t work,” says one, wearing eyelid tape and huge fake lashes. “It’s our lifestyle.”

Otaku culture is the focus of Japanese brand Shu Uemura’s holiday collection (from $27, shuuemura.ca), created with Takashi Murakami. The artist famous for stamping his colourful designs on Louis Vuitton Speedy bags in 2002 emblazoned the makeup’s packaging with Six Heart Princess, his anime artwork based on the legend of a warrior princess. “It’s a very dark story about people who were born into a cursed family and are not able to break away from their blood,” he says. Cheerful! “I tried to create something that would not be dubbed as modern art but that was totally Japanimation style.”

Even in today’s highly experimental fashion arena, it seems like a fantasy that a shoe-shaped hat could ever be considered high fashion. That, however, was the fantastical world of Elsa Schiaparelli. A true original, “Schiap” was a dominant fashion force in the ’30s and ’40s, and was hailed as a genius by her contemporaries (a 1934 Time article listed her as even more influential than rival Coco Chanel). Best known for pioneering a sense of playfulness and whimsy in fashion, the Italian-born designer captured the time’s Surrealist zeitgeist in collaborations with artists Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.

A peek inside the world of beauty collectors who decorate their vanities—and
their lives—with the world’s most exquisite cosmetics.

By S.S. Fair

Bugattis, Fabergé eggs, Netsuke figurines: People collect all sorts of weird, wonderful things. At a 2009 Christie’s auction, an empty perfume bottle from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for nearly 9 million euros. Crafted in 1921, it was a Marcel Duchamp “readymade”—a work of art made from an existing object, in this case a Rigaud perfume bottle Duchamp had decorated with a Man Ray photograph of himself dressed as his female alter ego, Rrose Selavy.

Maybe the potions and lotions in your possession will never command such stratospheric prices, but money is not always the end game. We collect to adorn ourselves and our surroundings: Imagine, if you will, a scentless, colourless world. Too sad.

See the Heroine Chic photo shoot »

The stars of our favourite childhood tales help tell the story of a season full of fashion character. In this photos shoot from our winter issue, we merged the Princess and the Pea with the likes of Chanel and recreated a fantasy version of the Paper Bag Princess complete with Givenchy logos. Take a high fashion trip back to the days of innocence.

See our glitter product picks »

Glitter and shimmer are reflecting from all manner of surfaces this season. Metallic mouths, jewel-encrusted eyes, silver-striped cheeks and pewter nails shone on the runways. Apply and wear with sparkly abandon.

Read L’Wren Scott’s holiday tips »

Glamour is a favourite subject of designer L’Wren Scott, and when she calls me from her London offices to discuss Christmas and collaborations, talk soon turns to sequins and sparkle—namely those within her holiday capsule collection for Banana Republic, in stores and online now. Inspired by “glamorous entertaining and holiday at home,” the collection has glitz aplenty (sequined sweaters, brocade shift dresses, juicy jewel tones), but one perfect outfit does not a holiday hostess make.

’Tis the season for festive merry-making, and, given Scott’s affinity for all things gilded (not to mention rock star Mick Jagger is her long-time boyfriend), we couldn’t think of anyone whose holiday entertaining style we’d want to steal more. From vintage ornaments and Christmas-y scents to gorgeous gifts and what to wear, we ask Scott to share some of her favourite things of the season, because during the holidays, all that glitters is definitely gold.

See our boudoir trend guide »

When I was growing up, I used to visit my grandmother in Palm Beach, where she wintered in a conch-pink pseudo Spanish-style condo called (accurately) La Bonne Vie. My favourite activity was grocery shopping at Palm Beach’s Publix—a glamorized supermarket washed a bunny-nose pink with valet parking and bougainvillea-swathed archways. Here, tycoons with Hermès-orange suntans and manses on Billionaire’s Row shuffled through the aisles dressed in silken Persian pyjamas and monogrammed velvet bedroom slippers, carts full of crab salad, their long-suffering chauffeurs waiting outside in purring Bentleys. Wearing pyjamas outside of the bedroom has historically been the habit of the egregiously wealthy, the eccentric, the hyper-medicated on day passes—and the freelance writer.