Gucci Is Headed To Paris Fashion Week

For one season only, Gucci is decamping from Milan to Paris Fashion Week. The Italian fashion house will present its spring/summer 2019 collection in the French capital on September 24, in what will be the finale of Alessandro Michele’s three-part homage to France.

“Gucci is a global brand with deep and vibrant Italian roots and a visionary French shareholder, Kering,” Marco Bizzarri, president and chief executive officer of Gucci told WWD. “When Alessandro told me of his desire to present the new collection in Paris – continuing the French-inspired narrative – I thought it was a perfect way to continue the creative homage to France.”

The date, which is the transition day between Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks, has been carefully chosen, Bizzarri said, to avoid impacting schedules. The brand, however, has not forgotten its roots, and will stage a special event at the Gucci Hub on September 19, during the second day of Milan Fashion Week.

Before then, Gucci will hold its cruise 2019 fashion show on May 30 on the Promenade Des Alyscamps, a Roman necropolis outside the walls of the old town of Arles. “After cruising New York, London and Florence, France was the most natural and organic landing place for Gucci,” Michele commented. “I wanted to pay my homage to this incredibly important and fundamental country for our culture and history.” His love letter to France began with his pre-fall 2018 advertising campaign, which took inspiration from the 1968 marches and riots in the country.

In response to Gucci’s intention to show in Paris - which has officially been shared with the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana and the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode - Carlo Capasa, president of the Italian Chamber of Fashion, said the association “understands and respects the reasons behind [the] request... and will look forward to Gucci returning to open Milan Fashion Week next February.”

The news follows a series of fashion week shifts including the announcement that Vivienne Westwood's spring/summer 2019 collection will be shown during London Fashion Week in September, instead of June.

Aries, Nabil Nayal And Teija Receive BFC Fashion Trust Support

The British Fashion Council has awarded Aries, Nabil Nayal and Teija funding and mentoring via its charitable initiative, the BFC Fashion Trust.

The emerging fashion brands join previous recipients Marques’ Almeida, Mother of Pearl, Palmer Harding, Rejina Pyo and Sharon Wauchob, who will continue to receive support this year. The winners were announced during a cocktail event at the London home of Megha Mittal, founder patron of the BFC Fashion Trust, which was born in February 2011.

Each label was chosen “for their exceptional effort and development in the areas around e-commerce, sustainability, production and wholesale expansion,” according to the BFC. In addition to the monetary grant, they will receive legal advice from Taylor Wessing, digital training from Google, mentoring on sustainability and industry best practice from Livia Firth's Eco-Age team, and access to international campaign partners HSBC and Revlon.

Since its inception, the BFC Fashion Trust has awarded more than £2 million to 42 designer businesses, including Erdem, House of Holland, JW Anderson, Mary Katrantzou and Roksanda. So far in 2018, it has awarded grants of £380,000 between the eight designers, WWD reports.

The news follows a series of announcements from the BFC, including the appointment of David Beckham as its ambassadorial president, Stephanie Phair as chair, and Molly Goddard as the winner of the 2018 BFC/VogueDesigner Fashion Fund.

Dua Lipa To Collaborate With /Nyden On Capsule Collections

Today /Nyden announce their latest co-creator: British singer/songwriter Dua Lipa. The 'One Kiss' chart-topper will collaborate with the seasonless H&M-owned brand on four capsule collections, which will include a wide range of sizes. "Dua is one of the most renowned pop artists in the world today. Her strong and fierce attitude, not to mention distinctive style, make her a perfect fit for the /Nyden tribe and philosophy,” said Stina Force, Creative Director of /Nyden. “Dua’s inspiring outlook and style is why we have chosen to work with her and co-create multiple collections.”

First announced back in January 2018, /Nyden, an affordable luxury brand targeted at millennials, will offer different capsule collections, co-created by select 'tribe leaders'. Prior to Dua Lipa, footballer Jérôme Boateng, singer/songwriter Justine Skye, tattoo artist Dr. Woo and actress Noomi Rapace have all been revealed as co-creators, with more announcements to follow in the coming weeks.

"My first love is music, but fashion also plays an important role in my life because I believe it’s so vital to self-expression," the singer-turned-designer enthused, speaking about the genesis of the upcoming partnership. "I look for clothes that reflect strength and fearlessness, but also match up to today’s fast pace. So I’m excited to be co-creating with /Nyden on my designs – it’s going to be a collection that’s completely suited to me, both onstage and off, and for my fans.”

"What I really liked about working together and collaborating with /Nyden is the fact that they allowed me total creative lee-way to create things that I wanted; to make something that I would want to wear, things that I think my fans would really like," Dua explained to Vogue over the phone from Kiev, where she'd just landed for a performance at the UEFA Champions League final. "I just loved that creative freedom."

As the most streamed female artist of 2017 in the UK and one of the world's biggest rising music stars how has Dua adapted to the role of fashion designer? "It seemed like a very exciting opportunity to begin with and I didn't really know how much I would actually enjoy it, and how many ideas I'd have. But I love dressing up, I love experimenting with colours. It's really exciting to get to channel that into my own designs. So, I'm really enjoy this new role."

As an ardent feminist who sings about girl power, not giving a fuck and "new rules", the 22-year-old sends a powerful message of female strength and self-belief to her legions of loyal fans around the world. A bold and playful dresser, it is during her performances when Dua often feels most empowered. "I mean, when I'm on stage, I always feel the most confident, whether that is in a body suit or whether I'm in trackies."

So, who has the burgeoning designer been inspired by in terms of fashion talent? "I think what Daniëlle Cathari did with Adidas is really interesting – making something simple, something really really cool and accessible for everyone, and I think she's a brilliant designer. I love the collaboration and I think that's what you want to do, it's to create something simple, that's really cool and effortless and something that everyone can be a part of." When Dua's first /Nyden collection drops in November, it's certain that it's going to be something a whole lot of people want to be a part of.

Carven Goes Into Receivership

Carven, and its parent company, Société Béranger, have filed a voluntary petition with the Paris Commercial Court for the French equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a spokesperson told WWD. It has been officially put into receivership, and is looking for a buyer.

The contemporary Paris Fashion Week brand, which reportedly employs 99 people and has annual revenues in the region of 20 million euros, suffered a substantial loss when the production of its spring/summer 2018 collection was delayed, and it was forced to cancel deliveries.

The ill-fated collection is the first from creative director Serge Ruffieux, who took the helm on February 1 2017. Upon his appointment the brand announced that Ruffieux would oversee "a new stage of growth and development of the house", and Ruffieux, himself, said that he felt “a real affinity for Madame Carven and her vision of fashion.”

Ruffieux hailed from Christian Dior, where he had been for nearly 10 years. He was responsible for leading the house, alongside Lucie Meier, in between the departure of Raf Simons and the arrival of Maria Grazia Chiuri. His position at Carven, however, is the first time he has headed up a design team alone. And his couture techniques that CEO Sophie de Rougemont praised as being “in absolute synchronicity with Carven's fabled heritage of Parisian chic and effortless elegance," have not been given the chance to play out fully yet.

Ruffieux took over from design duo Alexis Martial and Adrien Caillaudaud, who left the house in October 2016. During their tenure, Carven cancelled the menswear line and parted ways with its designer Barnabé Hardy.

Though it is not known who owns the majority stake, the label, which was founded in 1945 by the late Madame Carven, is held by eight shareholders including Bluebell, Sebaoun and Turenne Capital.

Ralph Lauren Will Be Honoured With A Members Salute At The CFDA Awards

Ralph Lauren’s brand is turning 50 this year, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America will celebrate the designer’s impact with a tribute at the 2018 CFDA Awards. During the June 4 ceremony, Lauren will be recognised with a CFDA Members Salute, an honour on behalf of all 500-plus CFDA members to mark Lauren’s global effect on fashion and his leadership in the industry. “From starting with a tie at Bloomingdale’s to building a global brand, I respect and admire everything that Ralph Lauren stands for, including his philanthropy and kindness,” CFDA chairwoman Diane von Furstenberg says. “This is the perfect moment for CFDA members to salute this icon of American fashion.”

This is the first members salute in the history of the CFDA, a fitting way to celebrate the man who has already been honoured with the CFDA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991 and the CFDA American Fashion Legend Award in 2007, among other wins. For Lauren, the honour comes 51 years after he started selling ties under the Ralph Lauren name in 1967. He established his label, Ralph Lauren Polo, the following year with a collection sold exclusively at Bloomingdale’s. From there, Lauren went on to create one of American fashion’s most enduring empires, branching into womenswear, childrenswear, home goods, fragrance, eyewear, and even restaurants, all without losing sight of the all-American vision that set the Ralph Lauren brand apart in the marketplace. His mark on fashion over the years has been immeasurable, inspiring everything from design elements, like an embroidered emblem on the left breast of a polo shirt, to the idea of what a global lifestyle brand could be.

Speaking to Vogue in 2002, on the eve of his 35th anniversary in business, Lauren took pride in “developing an audience and keeping that audience - that’s an accomplishment, I guess.” Fifteen years later that still holds true. Another one of his quotes that has aged as well as his clothing: “I’ve always said that if it looks better next year than it does this year, then I’ve done the job right.”

Can The Model Alliance Respect Programme Make A Difference?

On May 16, over 100 models joined together to launch the Respect Programme. Led by Model Alliance founder, Sara Ziff, the union called on brands and agencies to sign a legally binding agreement in order to build an industry defined by safe workplaces and mutual respect. The hashtag #time4respect has since garnered some 122 posts from models and media outlets pledging their support, but, one week on, have any agencies actually signed up?

“I’m optimistic,” Ziff tells Vogue over the phone from New York. “Top modelling agencies have expressed interest in joining the programme and our conversations to date have been encouraging.” As well as contacting agencies directly, the models have solicited the input of agency presidents to make sure that their founding principle – “human rights protections in corporate supply chains must be worker-driven and enforcement-focused" – is represented to companies comprehensively. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has failed so far, she explains, because it “does not put workers – those whose rights are in question and who have the most direct knowledge of their working conditions – at the centre of developing and enforcing solutions to the problem.”

But, as Ziff, explains, she’s “been banging this drum for a long time”. She brought her shared concerns about predatory photographers to agencies and stakeholders almost a decade ago, and it’s only in the last few months that the people have been willing to listen. “Now that we've presented a solution that offers an equitable way by which everyone in our industry can be accountable for upholding the standards in which we all believe, I’m determined to see this work through.”

Change, for Ziff, has to come from the bottom up. When she started modelling, she took it upon herself to fight for basic child labour laws in New York because there were none. “It's strange to think that [models are] the most visible people in the supply chain, and yet we don't even have the most basic labour protections,” she told the Copenhagen Fashion Summit on the Respect Programme’s launch day. Since then, she has increasingly found that corporations “tend to treat the discovery of abuses as public relations crises to be managed, rather than human rights violations to be remedied.”

James Scully, casting director and Model Alliance advisory board member, who joined Ziff and fellow model Edie Campbell at last week’s summit, believes that it’s the very heart of the fashion industry that needs to change: "In [its] search for constant newness, it has created a culture much like fast fashion brands. It cycles through models as quickly as inexpensive T-shirts.”

But, because models are beautiful, and people associate their lives with the glossy magazine imagery and Instagram pictures, “[their] suffering is [seen] as less valuable than anyone who works in entertainment or the corporate structure of a fast-food chain,” he continued. Campbell agreed that “it's very difficult to be sympathetic towards somebody who you can see has had fame, fortune, success from a young age – or you might perceive has received those things.

“What’s lost is the realisation [that] those young men or women are often 17, maybe younger, very far away from home, don't speak English, are in debt, have taken a massive financial risk themselves in starting this career and [have] often been sold a dream that will never come to reality,” Campbell asserted.

Social media has been “triggering survivors to courageously speak out," Ziff said of the #MeToo movement at the summit. But with this courage has come a “backlash from industry figures who are denying the survivors' stories of abuse. Further, some victims are essentially being blacklisted for speaking out, and trying to prevent further abuse, while their harassers continue to work.” Scully also called out the people who are discrediting the models’ stories, and querying why it took models so long to tell their stories of mistreatment. “What I can only say is, if you've never been abused or you've never been assaulted, you can't answer that question and you have no right to ask anyone for a time frame… that's not how it works, everything is not black and white.”

The real question, he added, is, “why did we wait so long and turn our heads, and watch this disaster happen and do nothing about it?”. Now that we know the stories, how can we keep the momentum to make change?

“The fashion industry has been 'business as usual' for so long that signing on to the Respect Programme might seem scary, but a swell of support is on the rise,” an encouraged Ziff says over the phone. She’s backed up by Campbell, who said at the summit that initiatives, such as the Respect Programme, don’t “need to limit anybody's creativity… It's not about stopping people from doing the job that they love, it's about just taking the fear, the ego, the aggression, and the violence out of it.”

It doesn't need to be this heart-wrenching, really difficult thing everyone is going to agonise over… it's a big commitment but it doesn't need to be a terrifying one," Campbell added. As Ziff says, “It's the right time – and we're ready.” In the week the Model Alliance expects to hear back from major agencies, bring it on.

The Row’s Head Designer Moves To Theory

Francesco Fucci is the new creative director of Theory womenswear. Spring pre-collection 2018 will be his first collection, in which, he tells Vogue exclusively, he “sought to return to the roots of the brand and create a new glossary of garments that could contribute to the evolution of what the Theory woman stands for today".

Within this “glossary”, Fucci has perfected the original trousers, jacket and shirt that Theory started two decades ago, when the brand was co-founded by Andrew Rosen in 1997. Indeed, Fucci is well-placed to reimagine Theory’s precise tailoring and luxurious workwear having spent the last five years as head designer at The Row.

Prior to his tenure under Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s luxury fashion house, he held the position of senior design director at Diane von Furstenberg, and worked under Francisco Costa at Calvin Klein when he first moved to New York in 2008.

Originally from the Italian village of Santa Maria a Vico, Fucci studied pattern making in Naples, before going on to do apprenticeships in both Milan (under Lawrence Steele) and Paris (at Maison Hurel, Maison Lesage and Maison Michel) before climbing the career ladder in New York.

Karla Welch: "I Want To Be A Brand That Walks The Talk"

Karla Welch is a woman with real pulling power. One of Hollywood’s leading stylists – Tracee Ellis Ross, Ruth Negga, Amber Heard, Karlie Kloss and Sarah Paulson all have her on speed dial – she used her bulging black book of contacts as a platform to launch her own brand, xkarla, two years ago.

xkarla – named after the way the stylist signs off her emails – kicked off with a collection of white T-shirts in collaboration with Hanes. “I did it as a way to go after and create my own opportunities rather than wait on brands to approach me,” she told Vogue. “I wanted to explore more than just styling. It's a chance for me to create products and create all the creative around the products.”

Now, after a hectic awards season, Welch is back with her next project in partnership with Levi Strauss & Co. In honour of the brand's pseudo-holiday, 501 Day, on May 20, she has reimagined the brand’s 501 jeans and a handful of other denim staples, including a reversible Sherpa jacket, boiler suit, Western shirt, oversized cropped Trucker, and leather fringe Trucker – the latter rather fabulously is rooted in her childhood fascination with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

Naturally, she called on her clients and friends to help model her indigo wares, and the campaign is an A-Z of Hollywood’s elite, plus a handful of successful, super-cool music artists. Amber Heard, Amber Valletta, Hailey Baldwin, Yara Shahidi, Tracee Ellis Ross, America Ferrera, SZA, Karen O, Lisa Love and SoKo all feature in the portraits, and there's a bonus video to the sounds of Yoko Ono’s “Yang Yang”.

When asked whether she ever imagined she’d be riffling through Levi’s archive, seeing her designs plastered across America’s billboards, and dressing “women who represent themselves to the fullest,” she says, “honestly, yes. I sort of know what path I’m on, and I’m putting in the work to do it.”

It’s a smart partnership for both brand and super-stylist. Welch has a loyal client list to wear and promote her designs, and she can offer up valuable expertise on exactly what her clients actually want to wear. Her tie-ups are not rooted in Instagram likes or her bank balance, but “what makes something both democratic and iconic.”

Her democratic vision extends to philanthropy, and she is driven to make a difference. “This is my purpose: to take what I do creatively and use it for social change.” Accordingly, Levi’s is making a donation to her charity of choice, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. “When I’m forming partnerships I’m clear from the get go that this is my brand ethos and that I want a piece of the product to go to a specific charity, which is always changing.

Though she won’t disclose which “icons” she’ll collaborate with next, her mission statement – "I want to be a brand that walks the talk and I want to influence others to do the same” – will see brands lining up around the block.

Meghan Markle Weds In A Givenchy Wedding Dress By Clare Waight Keller

Meghan Markle’s wedding dress is arguably the biggest fashion commission and best kept secret of 2018. Now, on May 19, the rumour mill has come to a halt, the bets are off, and Markle has married Prince Harry, and become the Duchess of Sussex, wearing Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy.

The gown - which, Kensington Palace said, epitomises "a timeless minimal elegance referencing the codes of the iconic house" - marks a collaboration between a modern princess and a designer who is emblematic of the new royal era she is leading. British couturier Ralph and Russo and London Fashion Week star Erdem might have been the favourites, but Markle’s ability to keep us guessing is indicative of the fact she is making her own rules. Markle walked herself part of the way down the aisle, she did not promise to “obey” Harry in the service, which was defined by contemporary twists including a gospel choir, and she has previously pledged her commitment to empower women during her time on the world's stage. Waight Keller became the first female artistic director of the historic French fashion house last year, further indicating that this was a moment of quietly confident girl power.

Markle met Waight Keller in early 2018 and "chose to work with her for her timeless and elegant aesthetic, impeccable tailoring, and relaxed demeanour," the statement from the palace continued. "Ms Markle also wanted to highlight the success of a leading British talent who has now served as the creative head of three globally influential fashion houses – Pringle of Scotland, Chloé, and now Givenchy."

The duo worked closely together on the design, which was created out of double bonded silk cady and had a purity that was achieved using six meticulously placed seams. The graphic open bateau neckline was the focus, in order to "gracefully frame the shoulders and emphasise the slender sculpted waist," while the lines of the dress extended towards the back "where the train flowed in soft round folds cushioned by an underskirt in triple silk organza," the statement read. "The slim three-quarter sleeves [added] a note of refined modernity," while the shoes were based on a Givenchy refined pointed couture design made of a silk duchesse satin.

"Clare Waight Keller is one of the most talented British designers," commented Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful. "The dress is beautiful and this is a brilliant moment in Clare Waight Keller’s tenure as the first female artistic director at the storied house of Givenchy."

The veil, meanwhile, was designed to represent the distinctive flora of each Commonwealth country united in one spectacular composition. Made from five metre-long silk tulle with a trim of hand-embroidered flowers in silk threads and organza, it was held in place by Queen Mary's diamond bandeau tiara, lent to Markle by the Queen. The bandeau, made of diamonds and platinum, was complemented by Cartier earrings and a bracelet by the French jeweller.

“It is truly an honour to have been given the opportunity to closely collaborate with Meghan Markle on such a remarkable occasion,” Waight Keller said. "We wanted to create a timeless piece that would emphasise the iconic codes of Givenchy throughout its history, as well as convey modernity through sleek lines and sharp cuts. In contrast, the delicate floral beauty of the veil was a vision Meghan and I shared, a special gesture embracing the commonwealth flora, ascending the circumference of the silk tulle.”

Stella McCartney, Lily Cole And Amber Valletta On Why Sustainable Fashion Needs More Voices

“I am just a fashion designer, [having sustainable conversations] wasn't part of my plan,” Stella McCartney told the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, before laying down the “appalling” fact that one percent of fashion on our planet is recycled. “It’s not a great place where we are at. Honestly, it takes up more time in my company than creating product… [we’re] just being decent human beings and having a decent label practice, [but] it’s a big problem because there are very few people that are doing that.”

McCartney made herself a promise at the beginning of her career – "I am not going to kill any animals for the name of fashion" – and has not compromised. She has never worked with fur or leather – a choice, she said, that cost her a job at Saint Laurent during Tom Ford’s era at the house – and will not work with glue, because it is made up of animal and fish bones “and god knows what other body parts.” She no longer incorporates PVC in her designs after Adidas informed her of the chemicals that can be cancerous for workers handling the material. And she took it upon herself to develop a sustainable alternative to viscose, because the fashion industry chops down 150 million trees a year: “I committed to that, and I put a deadline to it, and I actually achieved the deadline, which I think is rare," she said, before asking how many of the audience even knew what viscose was. Few put their hands up, indicating that being a solo sustainable fashion pioneer is a lonely place, and has limitations.

“I would love it if the fur industry was like, "Hey Stella, let's give up fur and create a really sustainable fake-fur together”, because that, for me, is a more sustainable business [for] the future,” she said. “I need that, I need help. We are not perfect. At Stella McCartney we are trying really hard, but we are not.”

McCartney has managed to turn her firm belief that “an investment in the environment is an investment in your life” into a fashionable proposition that consumers buy into. Indeed, she’s in the process of buying back her company from Kering, because, she said, as one of the few female leaders in the industry “it would be rude not to”. But other companies have found communicating a commitment to sustainability not quite as straightforward, or successful.

“There’s a feeling that you could turn people off if you [get] preachy, or if you feel like you're trying to present an idea that you're perfect when no company is perfect, and no solution is perfect,” Lily Cole shared of her own experiences working with brands who put social responsibility at their core.

Cole believes, however, that there has been a seismic shift in consumers’ interest and awareness of sustainability over the last 10 to 15 years, and that we’re at a tipping point. “Maybe I’m being naive, but I feel like [sustainability] is actually becoming sexier.” Black-and-white messaging, for her, is the way forward and she refers to the language of food, where fair trade, organic, provenance and packaging are all visibly displayed, to illustrate her point. “The challenge for fashion is how to communicate really complex supply chains, where you might have cotton from India, that's been sewn together in Bangladesh, that's dyed somewhere else, and a zipper added in Italy,” she explained. Her own experience has showed that "the more data you give, the more you kind of alienate and overwhelm", so "simple", "meaningful" ways of connecting the dots between a product's supply chain are the way to communicate and build a transparent relationship with consumers.

For Amber Valletta, one of the summit’s co-hosts, authentic storytelling is also the key. She has called on her celebrity acquaintances, or “valued influencers”, to help her create a short entertaining film about sustainability, which is currently in the production phases. Entitled The Changing Room, it’s about a shopper who is transported into a Wizard of Oz-inspired portal where conscious fashion, rather than fast fashion, is the agenda, and her starry friends provide the solutions. “We’re not just educating, we actually want to change the way that people think.” Entertainment and humour, she believes, is the way to the human heart, and how to fundamentally change behaviour, but, on a basic level, she adds, “we're not talking about this enough!”

“I think that a lot of people really don't know this issue… a lot of people don't know that fashion is the second dirtiest industry in the world,” Valletta continued. “There are a lot of perfectionists within companies and brands… They're scared to come out of the shadows… because if they're not doing enough they're afraid they're going to get some sort of backlash. I think that's really sad that we're doing that to ourselves.”

McCartney urged fellow brands to speak up, because “you have to go into business and try to look out for others... I need people to help create a demand. I need my looms to be all organic and I need as many people to use those looms.” If, like Valletta said, people within fashion don't understand sustainability as a concept, let alone a fundamental need, then it is everyone's responsibility to shout, never mind speak, about it.

100 Models Urge The Industry To Sign A Legally Binding Contract Against Sexual Harassment

One-hundred models have joined together to launch the Respect Programme, a legally binding agreement to protect models and end sexual harassment within the industry.

Led by Model Alliance founder Sara Ziff, who announced the agreement yesterday at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, the aim is to create an environment of mutual respect between agencies, brands, models and the stream of creatives, such as freelance photographers, stylists, make-up artists, hairstylists and assistants, that make up the fashion industry’s supply chain.

Before taking to the stage at the summit for a talk entitled “Being a Model in the #MeToo Economy”, alongside fellow model Edie Campbell, casting director and Model Alliance advisory board member James Scully and Kering CSO Marie-Claire Daveu, Ziff posted an open letter on her Instagram. She said that she had felt emboldened by Campbell, who wrote an open letter to the fashion industry in November highlighting model abuse and calling for radical change, and also Scully, who used Instagram to call out abusers of power at the start of the model #MeToo movement.

"As models, our images serve a commercial purpose, but our bodies remain ours," reads the letter. "Agreeing to be photographed or filmed as professional representatives of a product or brand does not constitute agreement to be groped, fondled, involuntarily disrobed or worse." Although models are the most visible people in the fashion supply chain, and often appear to be the most fortunate, there are no basic labour laws, Ziff told the summit.

Through the Respect Programme, models will have access to a confidential complaint process that protects them against retaliation, and ensures independent investigation and lasting consequences for harassers. Other elements of the agreement include prevention of economic abuse by making sure that models are paid on time, so they are not vulnerable or indebted to their agency, and encouraging signatories to work with each other more frequently.

“Respect goes beyond words of sympathy and Band-Aid fixes, and works towards prevention by empowering models to identify and uproot these abuses, backed by the enforcement power of the top companies in fashion,” the letter continues. As part of a survey conducted by Model Alliance in 2012, 85 percent of female models have been asked to pose nude at a job or casting without prior notice, while one in three have been put under pressure to have sex on the job. Unless everyone is educated, Ziff said, we can’t move forward as an industry.

Karen Elson, Doutzen Kroes, Teddy Quinlivan, Nathalia Novaes, Milla Jovovich, Caitriona Balfe, Bryce Thompson, Jason Fedele, Geena Rocero, and Elettra Wiedemann are among the models who have signed an open letter, and Ziff said that the Model Alliance has felt “very encouraged” by meetings with major agencies, such as IMG, The Society, Elite Worldwide and DNA Model Management, who they have urged to sign the agreement.

Why We Need To Talk About Transparency In Fashion

“It’s all your fault,” Simon Collins, founder of Fashion Culture Design and self-proclaimed provocateur, told the Copenhagen Fashion Summit of the damage the industry, which is the second most polluting industry after the oil industry, has done to our planet. “Accept that and do something. Don’t have a meeting, don’t have an idea… You don’t win if you feel righteous”.

Margrethe Vestager, European commissioner for competition, seconded his call to action, referring to the world’s leading business event on sustainable fashion as a “summit for change, a summit for solutions”. She reminded the industry of its collective responsibility to think about the effects of its choices, because fashion will never be separate to society. One single garment, for example, doesn’t just affect the person who wears it, the choice to purchase that garment affects the workers who earn the right to a fair wage, the workers who don’t want to fear for their lives in factories, the workers who need clean air and water, and everyone around the world whose future depends on cutting carbon dioxide emissions. “Sustainability has to be built in every part of change,” Vestager told the summit. “It has to be fundamental. It’s not for the fainthearted, but I don’t think anyone would accuse fashion of being fainthearted.”

Transparency and traceability are enablers of change, but the industry must read from the same definition of these terms, which have become buzzwords. Transparency, Leslie Johnston, executive director of the C&A Foundation, affirmed is the “disclosure of information in a standardised manner that enables comparison”. Traceability is the “ability to discover information as to when and how a product is made.” If transparency is all about trust, then traceability is about accountability.

“Transparency is the first step towards a different culture, one where brands become open and accountable, and customers are ready to become vigilant and ask, ‘who made my clothes?’" expanded Orsola de Castro, founder and creative director of Fashion Revolution. “Transparency provides an open door. We can’t fix what we can’t see… We need to make it as easy for us to see the clothes as it is to buy the clothes.”

The conversation between brands and customers is a step in the right direction, because until now, de Castro said, there was no conversation. Amanda Nusz, vice president of product quality and responsible sourcing at Target Corporation, adds of forming a company-customer alliance: “It’s not only good to do, it’s good for business… people will be loyal to ethical brands.”

But, if transparency is a win-win for both consumer, corporation and the planet, then why is it not happening? The decision has to come from the top, Nusz advised, because it requires a high level of resources and time. It’s not a box ticking exercise that can be paid for and filed away under jobs done, it’s about implementing a “holistic programme”, looking at the issues that are getting in the way of transparency, making transparency a part of the brand’s DNA, and educating and empowering the staff. “Sustainability [has to be] in the room at every meeting at the company,” Mark Walker, OuterknownCEO, said of his ethical start-up, which made transparency the core of the LA-based brand’s ethos or “vibe” when it launched three years ago.

But most “brands don’t trust it and haven’t tried it for long enough,” de Castro continued. “The fashion industry is built on secrecy, elitism, closed doors and unavailability. [Transparency] is disrupting the fabric of the fashion industry as we know it.”

Many brands and manufacturers have been making motions towards supply chain transparency, particularly in the aftermath of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster, which was a “never again” wake-up call. But, the question has to be, how does the industry work together? “It’s too big to tackle alone,” Nusz explained. Mostafiz Uddin, founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange, agreed that there needs to one set of standards to follow, so that each company doesn’t start from scratch. “We need to communicate in one language about transparency,” he said, and have “standardised information” that customers can understand too. Cecilia Strömblad Brännsten, H&MGroup environmental sustainability manager, who outlined H&M’s end goal to become 100 percent transparent, agreed that we must “align on a common vision and agenda and set industry targets.”

Ebru Ozkucuk Guler, senior CSR executive at ISKO, the leading manufacturer in sustainable denim, has completed Life Cycle Assessments for all 25,000-plus of its denim fabrics in order to fully understand the environmental footprint of each fabric from fibre to finished product. These environmental product declarations can be viewed by anyone online, and in November it will share a set of Product Category Rules, so that other manufacturers can establish eco and socially conscious supply chains using the data.

Geraldine Vallejo, Kering sustainability programme director, supported this notion of sharing knowledge and innovation: “If you only focus on your own efficiencies you’re missing the point.” Kering has implemented the Clean by Design programme across tier one of its brand suppliers, and is in the process of expanding the Natural Resources Defense Council-implemented scheme to the upper tiers. Burberry, who were represented at the summit by Pamela Batty, vice president of corporate responsibility at the brand, is investing £3million to London’s Royal College of Art to establish a Burberry material research group. Its mission will be innovation, and its radical research into new ways to sustainably make raw materials will be made publicly available. Nike launched its biggest ever sustainability challenge - the Nike Circulation Challenge – last year, urging innovators to create new ways of making products with its recycled offcuts scheme, known as Nike Grind. “We believe we can innovate our way through any problem, but the problems are extraordinary complex,” Eric Sprunk, Nike COO, said.The Young Designers Pioneering A Sustainable Fashion Revolution.

Nicolaj Reffstrup, Ganni CEO, maintained that it’s up to big businesses to innovate and lead the way. As a “small to medium enterprise” or SME, “there’s no politics, we control everything, so there’s no excuse for not taking control of an ethical supply chain.” But SMEs don’t have “the skills or capacity to create innovative solutions… we can’t produce manuals and work for them.” This needs to come from established, certified business models that not only support a transparent supply chain, but a transparent closed loop fashion system, or circular economy – yet more buzzwords.

An “end to end” production system, where garments are kept in the fashion system for longer and then made into new products at the end of their life cycle, is crucial, because currently 87 percent of fashion gets landfilled or incinerated. When 53 million tonnes of clothes are produced every year, this is a huge problem, and an even bigger one when we consider that in the last 15 years we have doubled the amount of clothes we produce. “We need to paint a vision of what a circular economy can look like,” Ellen MacArthur, whose inaugural Ellen MacArthur Foundation report focusing on circular economy found these harrowing statistics, said. “In a time of creativity and innovation, why would we ever turn anything into waste?”

Major global brands present at the summit, including Nike, H&M and Burberry, have signed up to the Make Fashion Circular initiative, which aims to create an "unstoppable momentum" towards an economy in which clothes are never seen as rubbish to be thrown away. Companies promoting a closed loop economy, such as resale sites Vestiaire Collective and The RealReal, and The Renewal Workshop, which repairs damaged products to make them sellable and profitable for brands again, were also in attendance. But, although each is a prime model of how garments can and should have an afterlife, there is still a huge elephant in the room: overproduction.

Closed loop models are so hard and so precise to achieve that they are putting a huge constraint on the industry, Paul Dillinger, Levi Strauss & Covice president and head of global product innovation, said. “If six out of 10 garments end up in landfill, should we have made those six garments?” Morals must be incorporated in these new business models. “Clothes are regarded as consumables,” Paul van Zyl, CEO of Maiyet, explained, and as long as that model exists, it has a lasting impact on society and the environment.

But it’s not the consumer’s fault. The industry has fed it a “more is more” mindset, and must now change this mindset to become more mindful. “If we think of [transforming] a linear economy into a circle we haven’t taken opportunity of the moment,” William McDonough, chief executive of McDonough Innovation, explained. “For it to be a virtue we have to have ‘goods’ and ‘services’, not ‘bads’ and ‘services’. We need to design goods that are good for the economy.” He described the industry as adults behaving with child supervision, and urged it to look in the mirror and find the “right thing to do, not the right way to do it”.

Thankfully, the consumer is making strides already. There used to be an “obsession with what they put in their body, now they’re becoming obsessed with what they put on their body,” Outerknown’s Mark Walker said, referring to the parallels between the organic food movement and fashion.

Everyone can claim to be an activist though, and every brand can advocate sustainability, because of the filters available to enhance the profiles we present to the outside world. For transparency about sustainability to work, there has to be a total openness about brand practices and consumer beliefs, and an openness for people to put their hands up and ask for help without getting shot down for not doing enough. Above all, the rallying cry of “who made my clothes?” has to be answered with companies taking the responsibility to honestly say, “I made your clothes”. As de Castro said, “it’s a question of shopping but also a question of survival.”

Comme des Garçons Launches New Brand: CDG

Comme des Garçons, regarded as the world’s most avant-garde fashion house, today launches a new brand under its umbrella: CDG. A collection that comprises what founder Rei Kawakubo refers to as “Comme des Garçons’ iconic designs” (namely: T-shirts, trainers, bomber jackets and the like emblazoned with the brand’s logo), arrives with the same, curious appeal that encompasses much of Kawakubo’s ouvre through a series of installations appearing in Comme outposts from London to Beijing. First drop within these spaces: a capsule collection of printed separates entitled Breaking News – “I thought it was a pretty nifty title,” says CEO Adrian Joffe – which will, become a fully-fledged collection sold through Dover Street Market Japan and on the first ever Kawakubo-designed website in July, and rolled out to the rest of world come October.

During a time when fashion merchandise is reaching peak desirability, Comme is clearly aligning itself with the logomaniacal zeitgeist. “We’ve had Good Design Shop for some years now,” continues Joffe, referring to a specific collection sold in the Tokyo-based retailer “and the collaboration between CDG and GDS came to an end, but sales have been amazing recently for the CDG part so we thought: why not simply carry on on our own? So, Good Design Shop became the new CDG brand, with a similar concept of good, iconic design that the Comme des Garçons part of Good Design Store had.”

While on the one end, Comme des Garçons offers spectacular showpieces – enormous, sculptural works that reflect the purest vision of Kawakubo’s creativity – at the other it does remarkable trade in its trainers and T-shirts, which underscore the business’ $300 million annual turnover. The Play logo, a sweet cartoon heart with eyes drawn by Filip Pagowski, has become a ubiquitous symbol across the world; they do a roaring trade through their Nike collaborations; their perfumes combine creative spirit with determinedly commercial appeal. While it would be easy for the brand to nestle within a vaunted corner of the industry, what is perhaps most remarkable about Comme is how it translates its radical approach to design into broad appeal. “With [the core brand] Comme des Garçons I can allow myself to be more free,” explained the notoriously reticent Kawakubo in January, as part of a Vogue feature on her work. “Other brands, other parts of the business, they give me that freedom. The total is the mix between creation and business. I have all these brands to try to get the freedom that each one gives me.”

“Good design is simple design… for the future,” continues Kawakubo in the press release for the launch, and her decision to venture into e-commerce for the first time signals a new approach for the designer. While the Dover Street Market stores have an online presence, she has never before embraced the opportunities e-commerce affords – in fact, she explained that “a lot of people tell me that just going to the shops and seeing the clothes makes them feel good – and you can’t expect to have that feeling from an e-shop, which is why I’m not interested in e-commerce. Whether it’s when people see the fashion shows, or visit the store, I want them to feel something incredible, to feel good and positive.”

Rei “wasn’t a fan as such, it’s true,” continues Joffe. “But she is a fan of doing something she’s never done before, so she finally became intrigued with designing an online shop and the perennial, iconic design concept of the brand lends itself rather well to e-commerce.” In some senses then, this is a newly liberated venture for Kawakubo who will be taking the iconoclastic simplicity of CDG into uncharted digital territory. “It’s the principle of business, not to stay stagnant,” she said. “To grow little by little is the natural process… there’s no choice.” We’ll wait with bated breath to see what a Kawakubo-designed e-store looks like on July 20th; in the meanwhile, Breaking News provides plenty of opportunity to invest in the spirit of CDG.

Tim Walker Releases 30 Signed Prints To Raise Money For LGBTQ Charity

For the June issue of British Vogue, Tim Walker and Kate Phelan travelled to Jamaica, to discover the land of free spirits, lush countryside and the magic that lies within. In the colourful and captivating story, 'Jamaican Rhapsody', models Binx Walton, Fran Summersand Adut Akech are photographed alongside some of Kingston's most well-known personalities including Jamaican musicians, writers and poets. The same story also shines a spotlight on the self-titled "Gully Queens", named for the storm drains they have been forced to reside in as part of Jamaica's homeless and displaced LGBTQ community.

The Gully Queens have both physical and mental scars as a result of living on Jamaica’s dangerous streets. Despite constant persecution and unwanted attention, "many of those from the gullies have a very natural way of expression through clothes, make-up and hair," explains Khi James, who helps run the Larry Chang Foundation which assists Jamaica's young and homeless LGBTQ people.

Disowned by family, threatened, stoned, attacked, and even shot, the Gully Queens are repeatedly evicted from spaces where they have sought refuge, and arsonists frequently set fire to their possessions. Since 2015, the Gully Queens charity has been able to secure a series of small grants that has allowed short term/emergency interventions by taking many of the homeless LGBTQ community off the streets. Larry Chang Foundation’s programme is designed to reduce premature death and restore hope by providing shelter, psychosocial support, life skills training and employability workshops.

Inspired by the bold and brave spirits he met in Jamaica and to raise funds for those in desperate need, Tim Walker will be releasing 30 signed prints of the Gully Queens with the Michael Hoppen Gallery at Photo London 2018, with all proceeds to be donated to the Gully Queens charity. "I found the notion of an aggression towards homosexuality in Jamaica sad and regressive," Walker stated. "To me the Gully Queens are emblematic of this injustice which is what led me to photograph them. There is the chance, through photography, to give something that is very wrong in the world the visibility to make it right."

Alexander Wang On Why His Latest Adidas Collaboration Promotes Industry Disruption

Alexander Wang’s third collection for Adidas Originals is inspired by production errors and factory inconsistencies, something the sportswear titan allowed the New York designer to explore because, he says, the brand is truly “open-minded.”

“In fashion, we're always chasing this idea of perfection, but sometimes imperfection is just as interesting, if not more so,” Wang explains of elevating mistakes into the foundation of the clothing line. He used factory rejects to see garments through a “new filter” and experimented with pixelated graphics, uneven printing, and perma-wrinkled fabrics to make each piece unique. “It was really exciting to watch Adidas, who has such a large footprint, open up to that idea. I thought was very brave of them,” he adds.

Where Wang goes, his gang of achingly hip model friends follows, and season three’s campaign features Binx Walton and Hanne Gaby Odiele. Drop one launched in a trailer in the middle of the desert at Coachella Festival in typical offbeat fashion, but drop two celebrates the workwear inspiration behind the collaboration with a series of photographs. Walton and Odiele moonlight as managers of a dry cleaner in what Wang imagined to be an irreverent take on an office scene, shot by Brianna Capozzi and styled by Haley Wollens.

“Oh gosh, I love those girls,” Wang says of his campaign stars, who play hoarders posing amidst drawers overflowing with receipts, invoices and bills. “They instantly create their own magic and energy on set, so you don't have to even direct them.” The fact they look as cool as they come amidst the chaos provided another level of irony for him.

He envisages that Wang fans will wear his Adidas Originals line alongside pieces from his eponymous brand, because they are the same type of woman. “She's an alpha female, she’s out there and she isn't afraid to be herself, to speak her mind and get what she wants. She’s a total non-conformist.” For him, “when it comes to getting dressed, there are no rules anymore”, and the Wang woman agrees.

It’s his need to keep busy – “I have to keep ideas flowing, because otherwise I think too much” – and his continued fascination with streetwear that keeps him motivated to keep creating. “[Street fashion] is becoming a point of disruption in this industry. It’s making a lot of people wake up and challenge the status quo,” he explains. “People are looking a lot more at process and the relevancy of fashion shows, and Fashion Week.” Indeed, the New York Fashion Week star announced in January that he is breaking away from the traditional show calendar, and is adopting a new biannual schedule with collections presented in June and December.

“It’s an exciting time to get people to talk and think differently,” he muses. “I think it’s healthy not to get too comfortable.” Comfortable, though, is exactly what Wang wants you to feel in his unisex sportswear and trainers that have just a kick of subversion about them.

Molly Goddard Collaborates With Tim Walker On New Book "Patty"

Following swiftly on from deservedly winning the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund earlier this month, today, Molly Goddard has announced the news of her first book. Photographed by Tim Walker and styled by her sister, Alice Goddard, Patty features pieces from the beloved Brit designer’s archive, from her 2012 BA collection to her spring/summer 2018 show. Family, friends and models are captured in a series of arresting images, and Molly’s instantly recognisable colourful, frothy creations are piled on and reimagined to take on new sculptural forms. Launching at Dover Street Market London on May 17 2018, Patty was art directed by Jaime Perlman and includes portraits of Camilla Lowther, Lily Cole and Erin O’Connor.

Vogue sat down with Molly and Erin over afternoon tea at Claridges to discuss the book, how the duo first met and the joys of working together and with Tim Walker. Read some of their conversation below:

Molly: We were talking to my sister Alice about doing something and who we would want to do it with. So we asked Tim and he said yes which we didn't really think he would, but Alice had worked with him quite a lot. It was kind of crazy that he said yes, and also that we were very vague with what we wanted to do. We were like "we kind of want to do a book but we don't know what we want to do but we just feel like we've got so many clothes and so many interesting people that we work with it would just be nice to document all of it". We met up with him a couple times and had very calm, casual tea chats at his studio about what we wanted to do and then booked a studio for two days. I think it all happened very quickly. Tim was free and we were free and it was like, quick let's do it, because there were quite a lot of people that we would have loved to be in it. [To Erin] Did Tim ask you on the day? No, we asked you before, didn't we?

Erin: Yeah, you asked me before, you and Alice. I think it was over text. It was literally a couple of days before and then I think Tim backed it up with another text.

Molly: You turned up, and said: "Oh what are we doing?"

Erin: I really didn't know what I was getting into at all. But I was just bombarded by tulle and literally wrapped around for two hours and the challenge was to be as mobile as possible. I was getting drenched in these layers upon layers of colour and I don't think Tim and I had ever really done static portraits since we've known one another, they're very much alive. When you're given free reign because there are no rules, that's my kind of gig actually.

Molly: Yeah, fun!

Erin: I've always felt that way about you, Molly, since I met you, everything has always been quite last minute and organic and - I think it's brilliant because everything is so, so... I don't know, it's quite regimented I think, our industry now.

Molly: Was it at the Serpentine summer party that we met?

Erin: It was at the Serpentine, yes.

Molly: And you were like, "I love your clothes", and I was like [strong inhale] it's Erin!

Erin: Which I find really funny, because I knew you were you, but it just took me a moment to go up to you to tell you that. I've seen and worn many different designers for over two decades and there are some that stick out to you and some you respond to. You have the kind of imagination that I like to try and work with, so I kind of represent the final bit as it were, it's like the da-daa! And I thought, yes, there's a woman whose clothes I would wear in real life.

Molly: That's amazing, isn't it?

Erin: It's amazing to me, because it makes my role so much easier. It's like a painting, and you complete it. Your clothes are like paintings.

Molly: We did the Tim book last summer, a long time ago. And we said, 'Oh, let's get it out soon' and then we thought why are we rushing it, and then it became slower and slower and slower… Yeah, so that was kind of the first time we hung out.

Erin: Excuse me, no! When we did the fitting, in West London, and I met your mum and your sister and we were having a right old chat, and tried on a few different dresses...

Molly: But that wasn't pre-book?

Erin: Hold on, I thought I did the show first, and then we did the book!

Molly: It was book first, definitely, because we did the book I think in June or July, and then it was like, could we dare ask Erin to be in the show?

Erin: I was so glad you did, I really was, because I don't really do any shows any more just because there's a lot of really brilliant young women doing the shows now. But there's an element of couture to your clothing because it's performance, you cannot just walk up and down, it's a wasted opportunity. So, I thought right, let's get the sea legs on, and I was delighted when we went to that fitting because the first thing I saw was…

Molly: My crap studio!

Erin: No! I was backstage; biker boots! And it was sort of old school for me, in that, the clothes are literally made on my back, and I'm so used to that, it was very like the haute couture way of working, and I've only ever experienced clothes in that way, even for pret-a-porter actually because I'm extremely elongated, a lot of the time, if it allowed, the clothes were stretched for me.

Molly: It was the most fun.

Erin: You really enjoyed it, and I love that you did the rehearsal with us.

Molly: With the book, it wasn't about collections or seasons or clothes actually. The clothes were just props I suppose. Things were tied on and shoved on and strapped on and stood on top of or wrapped around; nothing was worn as it was meant to be.

Erin: It was just an endless creation. It wasn't about achieving the final thing, it was about the process of doing something and I always really miss that because everybody's obsessed with getting something right whereas with Tim, the joy's with the process, the magic, the nugget in the middle, you're working towards something and it's the movement there. And I always look at a photo as a performance too.

Molly: It was about people's personality. If someone came in wearing interesting clothes, someone was like "I really like what they're wearing", just shoot them in what they're wearing, so that was kind of part of it as well.

Erin: Literally, I was wearing a pair of tights... I think they were my tights and everything else from my knees to my hair to my chest to my head was covered.

Molly: You definitely are the star of the show. It was amazing watching you do it.

Erin: I think it's impossible not to love having a moment with people you love. Tim and I started working together 22 years ago, just to put it in perspective, so it's quite handy that you were working with him putting a book together, I wouldn't dare ask Tim to do a book! So it was lovely just to get everybody in one room! I used to love going to work and not knowing what was going to happen. I was genuinely really flattered to be asked to be a part of it, especially with all the other people you have there. I really wanted to stay and stalk Camilla [Lowther].

Molly: I know, Camilla was funny.

Erin: [Camilla's] got one of my favourite faces of all time. I mean it was the ultimate casting. None of them were wallflowers.

Molly: There's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant... actually it is an outtake, but my guinea pig is in it, because the book is called Patty. We were like, what can it be called? What can it be called that's like totally ambiguous and no one's going to know what the fuck we're talking about?

Erin: Is your guinea pig called Patty?

Molly: Yeah, so the book is called Patty.

Erin: Did you dedicate it to Patty?

Molly: No, no, it's just called Patty!

Patty launches at Dover Street Market London on the May 17 2018. Copies will be available to purchase at select stores and via the Molly Goddard website.

Savage X Fenty: Everything We Know About Rihanna's Underwear Line

Rumours began circulating back in March that Rihanna was expanding her Fenty empire to include a lingerie line. Now, the Barbadian popstar's social media campaign teasers have come to an end, and RiRi fans around the globe can officially buy her Savage X Fenty underwear collection.

“It was important to me to push the boundaries, but also create a line that women can see themselves in,” Rihanna said of the project, which is underlined with her mission to celebrate fearless individuality and broaden the definition of what is beautiful. “I want to make people look and feel good, and have fun playing around with different styles.”

In total, Savage X Fenty will comprise 90 pieces of lingerie, sleepwear and accessories, including four capsule collections. The core collection, dubbed "On the Reg", includes everyday essentials, like T-shirt bras and "undies". The "U Cute" line boasts the lacy pieces debuted on Rihanna's Instagram, including a selection of femme-in-the-front, frisky-in-the-back bikini-cut knickers, and the "Damn" range is all about sassy bodysuits, suspenders et al. But, for the ultimate bad gal, there’s the "Black Widow" selection, which the brand describes as “risqué and ultra sexy.” Half-cut bras, open-back bikini bottoms and marabou embellished jumpsuits are all on offer. “There are really no rules with lingerie,” she explains. “Cute and edgy can live in the same collection. The line dares you to try something new while completely remaining authentic to yourself.”

Inclusivity has been a benchmark of all Rihanna's previous endeavours, and Savage X Fenty will be no different. Bras will be available from a 32A to 44DD, with lingerie, underwear and loungewear coming in sizes from XS to 3XL. The campaign stars, including Slick Woods and plus-size model Audrey Ritchie, are indicative of the fact "savages come in all shapes and sizes". International shipping will also be available to 210 countries so "savages" all around the world can shop the collection.

The price point, too, is accessible. Bras will be sold from $39 to $59, with T-shirt bras and underwear slightly lower, from $29 to $34 and $14.50 to $29, respectively. Higher priced items, such as corsets, jumpsuits, and robes, still sit under $100, ranging from $69 to $99.

“I approach everything with the same mentality," she adds of why now was the right time to partner with the TechStyle Fashion Group. "It has to be authentic, it has to be from me, my perspective. I’ve wanted to do a lingerie line for a long time, but it was important to me that it be done right. Everyone should feel good wearing lingerie. That’s it.”

The rapturous critical and commercial acclaim of Rihanna's Fenty beauty line (YouTube reported that there were 132 million views of Fenty Beauty-related content in the month after it launched in 2017) and the continued success of the Fenty x Puma collection of sports-meets-streetwear can leave no doubt that Savage X Fenty will launch to a mass audience hungry. For superfans, there’s also a dedicated membership programme where for $50 annually, shoppers get exclusive early access to launches, the ability to shop limited-edition items, and free two-way shipping. Savages, get shopping at Savagex.com.

Cate Blanchett’s Mary Katrantzou Cannes Dress Is Inspired By Childhood Nostalgia

From the initial design to the final embellishments, the Mary Katrantzou dress Cate Blanchett wore to the Cannes Film Festivalpremiere of Cold War took six months to create. Three solid weeks were spent on hand embroidering the custom creation with sequins, bugle beads and Swarovski crystals alone.

"It was a dream come true,” Katrantzou tells Vogue of receiving the call from Blanchett’s people. The Cannes jury member, it turns out, had seen the Greek designer’s spring/summer 2018 catwalk show, and mentally shopped different aspects of the collection for her French Riviera wardrobe. The final red-carpet confection is an adaptation of various SS18 pieces, with print artwork and adornment engineered especially for Blanchett.

Look closely, Katrantzou says, and you’ll see the paint by numbers story from the collection, which was inspired by nostalgic childhood pastimes. “The dress evolves from this black and white linear print on a racer-back bodice into an explosion of colour and texture in a voluminous asymmetric skirt.”

Blanchett was involved in every step of the process, from OK-ing the silk faille base to the intricate beadwork. “She was incredible to work with, clear in her vision, yet open with her creative approach,” the London Fashion Week star, and former NEWGEN recipient and BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund winner, continues of the experience, which she’ll hold close to her heart. “I have admired Cate for her immense talent, intellect and grace for many years and have always thought of her as the epitome of the woman I aspire to design for.”

David Beckham Is Appointed Ambassadorial President Of The BFC

Sarah Mower, Dylan Jones, Sophia Neophitou, David Beckham, Edward Enninful and Caroline Rush
BFC.

The British Fashion Council has appointed David Beckham its ambassadorial president, a newly-created role that will support the organisation in its goal to build networks and partnerships in the United States and Asia.

During the two-year tenure, the global networking position will see Beckham raise the profile of emerging British fashion talent within investment and media communities, and promote ongoing innovation in the sector.

"My role is to support the British Fashion Council, to shine a light on the incredible fashion talent we have here in the UK, and hopefully open up new exciting opportunities for them in markets like the US and China," Beckham told Vogue exclusively. "I am so lucky that my career has opened up these markets to me, and I hope I can pass some of that benefit on and support the British fashion industry as much as possible globally."

A key focus will also be education, and Beckham will be tasked with helping boost engagement in young talent from all backgrounds across the UK, through BFC-run Saturday clubs, scholarships and apprenticeships. "It’s so important to make sure we are always supporting our next generation of creative talent in whatever field they are in," he continued. "If this role helps me to use my position to help shine a light on programmes like this, and inspire kids from across the UK that the fashion industry can be an option for them, then I am incredibly proud to do so."

The announcement follows the news that Farfetch chief strategy officer Stephanie Phair has been confirmed as the BFC chairman for the next three years. Phair echoed Beckham’s enthusiasm about the new ambassadorship: "As we look to boost support for the British fashion industry at a global level we identified the need for a global figurehead, with global reach, who is able to shine a light on our incredible British fashion talent and ensure we build and create energy for the British fashion economy as we transition through the Brexit period – and David is perfectly placed to help us do this."

Tan France On Why Queer Eye Has Become A Cultural Phenomenon

First thing’s first: Tan France has some rumours to dispel about Queer Eye, the reality makeover show, where lifestyles and prejudices are challenged by five gay men, known as the Fab Five.

Number one: the Fab Five don’t actually live in the uber-stylised loft on location. The industrial space is a faux home set tacked onto the end of the production team’s office, and the boys set up camp in an apartment block (different flats) close by. Number two: the first two seasons were filmed back-to-back in Atlanta over four-and-a-half months, not separately. The fivesome spent almost five days with each of their makeover subjects, and the crew filmed constantly. Number three: the episodes were not aired chronologically, as Netflix chose the most captivating stories for season one to ensure it garnered a loyal global audience immediately.

Filmed in secrecy, France had no idea that the reboot of the 2003 Bravo series, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, would become a cultural phenomenon. “People think we are lying when we say that, but there truly was no way of knowing just how massive this would become in a heartbeat,” France tells Vogue. “I thought it would be a niche programme that girls and gays would get behind. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”

One thing the Fab Five, made up of France, fashion expert; Antoni Porowski, food and drink expert; Karamo Brown, culture expert; Bobby Berk, design expert and Jonathan Van Ness, grooming expert, could bet on was their friendship. When they met at the audition, they hit it off right away, peeled off from the other applicants and created a text thread called, yep, the Fab Five: “It was super arrogant, but we didn't think we would get the gig,” he recalls. The energy between them was tangible enough for the casting panel to notice, and they hired what France affectionately calls his “bunch of idiots”.

Indeed, the energy between them is so high-octane that Netflix employed an on-set wrangler to make sure that filming went smoothly. “An actual child wrangler who makes sure we sit and behave between scenes,” France laughs. “What you see in the show is only a tiny representation of how much we truly love each other, because we're focusing on the hero [the subject of the episode].” Follow each of them on Instagram, and you’ll see he’s serious from the constant liking, commenting, sharing and photobombing of each other’s posts.

Friendship and fame (his Insta following is a healthy 654,000 and counting) was not the motivation behind his Queer Eye audition. “I didn't really care about the entertainment industry, that wasn't my life,” he explains of his business-owner background. “I wanted to show the world a version of me and everything that I represent, because I represent a lot that’s never really been seen before: an Asian person on American TV, who's British, gay and follows a certain religion.”

Though "Americans still call [me] Middle-Eastern rather than Asian", he is happier Stateside than back in the UK because, “I don't get called the same names as I did at home in the north of England. I would often get called a ‘Paki’, and that's sickening in this day and age. It was really important for me to have open dialogues on the show to break down these misconceptions about what I might represent.”

On day two of filming, he was asked by Tom Jackson (episode one) whether he was a terrorist. “It was very shocking and very jarring,” he remembers. “That set the tone for me and made it clear why I was doing the show. I wanted to set the record straight.”

France was the only one of the five who had not worked in TV before, but lack of media training did not hamper him in these situations: “I've experienced racism and homophobia my whole life, so I’ve trained myself to just deal with it calmly, to not cause a scene and to find a way to calm the situation down. When somebody says something stupid to me, I usually alleviate it with laughter and humour. I make light of it to educate people on why it’s inappropriate.”

When the Fab Five’s car is stopped by a police vehicle in episode three, it divided the team because “people don't understand the feeling of being pulled over when you're a person of colour”. Likewise, he says, the production team couldn’t understand the cultural significance of France and Neal Reddy – the Indian contestant in episode two – working together on a TV programme that would be filmed in Asia. “Those sorts of shows are usually banned out there, but they can’t ban Netflix, so it was really important to talk about cultural things that weren’t just relevant to Western society.”

The response has been worth it. In the months following the show’s February air date, France received almost 1,000 DMs a day. “People thanked me for changing their parents’ perceptions of the Pakistani people down the street, their gay neighbours… the conversations in peoples’ homes have completely changed because of the show, and that’s amazing.”

So, how does France, who was scouted for the show via his blogger friend’s Instagram pictures, break down the barriers between himself and the Queer Eye subjects? “I get to see men in their underwear in the changing rooms, and that breaks down barriers like nothing else!” he says of the shopping trips, which typically take five hours. “Seeing guys in their most vulnerable state talking about their bodies gives me an opportunity to talk about everything. Once they open up about their appearance then usually they are willing to open up about pretty much everything.”

And there lies the show’s success: “I don't call our show a ‘makeover show’, it’s a 'make better show', but even that doesn’t do it justice. We don’t just make things pretty. We connect with people on an emotional level, and I think that’s why it’s become such a big hit.”

“A lot of them were really hesitant to say what they thought of style, because they thought it wasn't important,” he adds. “But when they started seeing themselves looking better, and their partners looking at them in a different way, something switched. I have a saying that sounds frank, but it’s true, I want men to feel desirable and to get laid by their wives.” And that candour is why Queer Eye has won over not just Vogue, but Netflix-devotees worldwide.

Why Le Kilt Swapped Fashion Week For Craft Week

Fashion week fatigue? Samantha McCoach knows the feeling. The petite designer behind Le Kilt, the London-based brand injecting traditional Scottish kilts with a dose of off-beat cool, gave London Fashion Week a miss this season in favour of a craftier alternative.

“Essentially, what we’re doing at Le Kilt is about celebrating craft, so we thought we’d give it a go,” the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund finalistsays, of her decision to reallocate funds to a series of workshops and an exhibition, Innovation Through Tradition, which opens this week at the Michael Hoppen Gallery as part of London Craft Week. “There is so much time going into the garments and they’re not necessarily ‘shouty’ enough for a presentation, you really have to tell a story about how they’re made to get a better understanding of why you might buy them,” she continues.

It’s an exercise in storytelling that has paid off. The exhibition, in partnership with NORN, a London-based design consultancy, is a brilliantly engaging revision of Punk (with a capital ‘P’) within a traditional craft context. Ideas started flowing when McCoach, whose label has recently expanded its repertoire to include raw, unwashed London-made denim, as well as Scottish knitwear and footwear in collaboration with George Cox, went to NORN’s founders to learn how to weave, as part of her International Woolmark Prize Collection efforts (which, incidentally, she later won).

“The idea with the exhibition is to look at craft and appropriation, how we wear clothes,” she says. “If you catch your jumper and you don’t repair it, does that little hole add something to the garment? Should you put a patch on it? Does it then have a relationship with Punk?”

McCoach’s aim is to introduce the softer side of Punk to a new generation, and to expose its traditional roots within a craft context. “It’s so easy to say that Punk is about anarchy and rebellion, and I don’t necessarily agree with that,” she enthuses. “Punk is about individuality and identity – making something your own by changing it. It’s also about craft – if you’re pulling threads out of your jumper, putting a patch on something, you are nodding to a traditional technique.”

Going on to discuss tartans, many of which feature in her designs, she says: “I never think of Punk as a reaction against tradition – tartan is associated for instance with Johnny Rotten and Vivienne Westwood but also the Royal Family. There’s a paradox that suggests there’s something much more nuanced about Punk and its relationship with super-traditional craft. I want people to see the softer element.”

She also wants to teach people how to mend their clothes. Last week saw the first in a series of Le Kilt mending workshops at Liberty, with McCoach leading a crash course in weaving for 10 curious attendees, all of whom had brought with them an old piece of clothing that they wished to revive. “I had no idea what it would be like,” laughs McCoach, in her soft Scottish brogue. “But it was really inspiring. We wove things together, turning patches into new things. One guy brought some old sari silks; another lady was a knitter and had some wool; some students had brought tea towels.”

Each respective student left having manipulated their fabric into something new. “I like the idea of rolling the workshops out across the country; as a child I made so many things out of toilet roll, necklaces out of pasta, and I feel like those childish experiments are being lost,” says McCoach. “It’s so important to celebrate mistakes and learning, to not worry about things needing to be perfect.”

Then, reflecting on her decision to switch things up more generally, she says: “If you go into something without any expectations, you’re encouraging and positive, open to the right or wrong answer, then something really amazing can come out of it. I’m going to try and do better at that.”

Catch Samantha McCoach in conversation tomorrow evening at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TD. Tickets for the workshops have sold out, but the exhibition is free and open to all. For more information about future Le Kilt workshops, sign up to the brand’s newsletter.

The British Fashion Council Announces Stephanie Phair As Chair

Stephanie Phair has been confirmed as the new chair of the British Fashion Council for the next three years, with the option of renewing the post after the initial contract has been fulfilled.

Phair is the chief strategy officer for Farfetch, a position that she has held since November 2016 and will remain in. Her 13-year ecommerce career began at Portero, the first pre-owned luxury marketplace, and she went on to join Net-a-Porter as president of The Outnet, which she launched in 2009, and sit on the board of the Net-a-Porter Group from 2009-2015. Her duties as chair will include ensuring the organisation is able to lead the sector in a changing industry and economic environment; supporting the CEO in the delivery of the organisation’s strategy focusing on five strategic pillars: Reputation, Investment, Business, Digital & Innovation and Education; developing relationships with sponsors and industry patrons and building the profile of British fashion globally.

“I am honoured and delighted to take on the role of chairman,” Phair said in a statement. “The British Fashion Council is in a strong position following the incredible work of Dame Natalie Massenet, Caroline Rush and the team, and my role will be to build on this and help drive continued innovation and new thinking in this fast paced, changing industry.”

Caroline Rush, chief executive, added: “I welcome the appointment of Stephanie Phair as our incoming chair and we all look forward to working with her on strengthening the opportunities for British fashion talent and businesses over the next few years. Her appointment was driven by her reputation as a strategic thinker, a broad view of the sector, and her propensity to challenge the norms to create new opportunities for growth.”

The announcement puts an end to the research of executive recruiter Odgers Berndtson, who was enlisted by the BFC to undertake a robust search for the role, when Massenet stepped down as chairman in December 2017. Anya Hindmarch and David Pemsel, non-executive board directors, worked with Berndtson on the search, with input and consultation from Rush and Dylan Jones, menswear chairman and non-executive director.

A First Look At Azzedine Alaia: The Couturier At The Design Museum

On May 10, Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier, the first exhibition to be shown in the UK on the legendary designer, opens to the public at the Design Museum. Conceived and co-curated by Azzedine Alaïa himself, prior to his death in November 2017, the exhibition explores his extraordinary work, spanning his prolific career from the early ‘80s to his very last masterpieces towards the end of 2017. Over 60 rare garments (including his trademark zipped dress, the bandage dress, the corset belt, the stretch body, perforated leather) are displayed in the exhibition co-curated by Mark Wilson, Chief Curator of the Groninger Museum, alongside a series of specially commissioned architectural screens by Alaïa’s close friends, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic, Marc Newson, Kris Ruhs and Alaïa’s partner of many years, Christoph von Weyhe. Inspired by and complementing the garments on display, the commissioned works are the perfect backdrop to Alaïa’s exceptional creations which have shaped the course of fashion history over the past few decades.

Photography depicting the processes of Alaïa’s craft, as well as personal quotes that offer more snapshots of his life and work adorn the walls of the space, such as: “My obsession is to make women beautiful. When you create with that in mid, things can’t go out of fashion.”

Last week, as the finishing touches were being made to the exhibition, Voguespoke with Mark Wilson, who has previously worked on a series of exhibitions with the designer, all around the world. “I've known Azzedine for pretty much 22 years,” Wilson explained over the phone from Amsterdam on how the show came to be. “It just happened that [Maison Alaïa] were opening the store in London and they were approached by the Design Museum and I'd been talking to them too, so it was just this synergy that happened. When Azzedine and I went to see the space to talk about it, we realised that it's not really large enough to do a massive retrospective so to speak. I told him that I didn't really want to build walls in the space because I didn't want it to feel closed off. Since it was the Design Museum I thought it was a great opportunity to have screens made so I asked him to select artists; the screens sort of work as backdrops for many of the outfits. It's really the show he wanted to do. I really kept it that way.”

Working closely together for months on the exhibition, Alaïa’s sudden death in November 2017 might have meant the end of show, however, Wilson and Maison Alaïa decided to go ahead, especially upon discovering the vast amount of work Alaïa had been masterfully labouring on. “I have to say I was really kind of surprised because after he passed... about two weeks later we decided to continue with the show and I went to the atelier and he had really been working on so many outfits for the show,” Wilson continues. “For part of the exhibitions we do, he remakes all the outfits. They're elongated and custom-fit to the mannequins. He'd been working on so much so the selection is pretty much 90 percent of what he and I [originally] discussed."

Having worked together previously on exhibitions from Rome to the Netherlands, the exhibition at the Design Museum offers viewers rare access into Alaïa’s most recent couture creations. “The last show we did together was the gallery at Borghese in 2015, so we wanted to include groupings of outfits since that exhibition, so that's specifically the stuff he had the atelier working on. They've done an amazing job because they've of course continued since he passed and finished all of the outfits to his specification.”

Clearly an almost impossible question to ask both a close friend of Alaïa and someone so close to the project, but does Wilson have a highlight of the exhibition? “I can't really say a favourite piece but the Marc Newson screen is just incredible. Just beautiful. It's 10 metres long by 3.5 metres high so it is monumental. In front of that, in the openings of the show, we are showing the black chiffon outfits with the rivets from Azzedine's last couture show. Naomi [Campbell] wore the one with the velvet. It's seven pieces. They look amazing. I saw him working on them before the show and it's all the variations of that. And again, that was what he and I discussed. That was what was going to open the show, with Marc Newson's screen behind.”

As someone who was privileged enough to know Azzedine both professionally and personally, through a friendship that spanned a few decades, what does Mark adore most about The Couturier, Azzedine Alaïa and hope that people will take away from the exhibition? “You can't time his clothes. That's what I think is amazing and we kind of downplay that. I don't think dates are so important. You look at his clothes and they could have been made in the future or the past. I think that's what makes him so special. Timeless. I mean I cannot tell you how much I loved that man. When we were in Rome for about 10 days to do the whole installation of the exhibition [in 2015] we just had a blast. We had so much fun. So much fun. I can't explain how or why but he changed my life. I love doing shows – this is what I do as a a curator – but really I did it to hang out with him because I love him so much… He was incredible.”

Alexa Chung’s Met Gala Dress Was Inspired By Anne Boleyn And Claire Danes In "Romeo and Juliet"

Alexa Chung was feeling blessed ahead of last night’s Met Gala. “This is an actual Cinderella situation,” she said a few days ahead of her very personal red carpet moment. For the first time, Chung wore a dress that she designed herself under her one-year-old eponymous label. “It’s huge for me because I first attended the Met Ball as a guest of a designer in 2010,” she explains. “To fast-forward to this moment when I’m wearing a dress of my own design, from the company that I started, is thrilling.” The ethereal short white dress with Japanese lace trim was a true labour of love for Chung, who says that she was inspired by monarch portraits inside The National Gallery in London, as well as Anne Boleyn and “a little bit of Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet.”

The model and designer was careful not to take the Catholicism theme too seriously, or interpret it too literally. “The theme sounded fairly intimidating at first,” she admits. “It sort of evoked a seriousness and grandeur that isn’t necessarily within my comfort zone.” Chung and her team went back and forth between short and long silhouettes and whether or not to keep the dress white or to use brighter colour. “In the end, we kept it white because it was reminiscent of an altar boy smock,” Chung notes. “I think the theme created plenty of scope for playfulness.” She accessorised with colourful Buccellati rings that called the papal jewels to mind, as well as a pearl-encrusted choker and hair scrunchie. Though her shoes were Gucci, Chung designed her miniature bucket bag, which was embroidered with symbols of the Seven Deadly Sins. A cheeky nod from a cheeky and very chic girl: “It was too tempting not to have a little nod to vanity with me as I traversed the carpet,” she says.

Anne Hathaway's Met Gala Gown Pays Tribute To A Different Kind Of Symbolism

When Pierpaolo Piccioli sent Anne Hathaway the image of his proposed Met Gala look for her - a blood-red ballgown from his Valentino Couture spring/summer 2018 collection - she replied, “Yes, this one, absolutely this one. 100 percent.”

"Pierpaolo felt strongly about this dress for Annie,” stylist Penny Lovell tells Vogue. “He really loved it for her." There was no need to create something new to complement the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imaginationtheme, because this gown was "pure perfection" and symbolic of the longstanding and symbiotic relationship between Hathaway and the house of Valentino. There was never any question that she would go to this year's gala with anyone else.

“When it arrived, it was one of those great moments when a dress actually looks better off the runway and in real life. With Anne’s skin tone and her hair colour, it had a real sense of drama.” For the night itself, they altered the gown so that the wide front panels accentuated Hathaway’s waist from the front, but let the beautiful open back with bow necktie do the talking from behind. “The Met carpet is so big and it’s so 360,” Lovell shares. “You see everything.”

Aside from the silhouette and fabric – which reminds Lovell of Princess Diana’s wedding dress – and her hair – the result of much careful planning and "spike" curation from her longtime hair stylist – Hathaway’s look stands out for one reason. A reason that neither a Hollywood glam squad nor a relationship with a couture maison, can muster: Hathaway is a huge fan of the Met Ball. “She really loves that there’s a theme. She thinks about it, she gets into it. It’s always so special for her,” Lovell explains.

With the release of Oceans 8, which is centred around a Met Gala heist, just around the corner, this year’s event has greater significance: Hathaway wears a Valentino gown in the film’s most important scene, Lovell shares, before shushing herself. For tonight, there’s no need for spoilers, there’s enough drama in Hathaway’s red-carpet moment already.

Savage X Fenty: Everything We Know About Rihanna's Underwear Line

Rumours began circulating back in March that Rihanna was expanding her Fenty empire to include a lingerie line. Now, the Barbadian popstar has confirmed via social media that an underwear collection called Savage x Fenty is launching worldwide on May 11th.

"Bet ya didn’t know it’s #nationallingerieday 😍 got a lil treat for my ladies.... #SAVAGEXFENTY is coming to you worldwide on MAY 11th!! Exclusively on SAVAGEX.com !! Head there now to peep the live countdown ⏱" Rihanna wrote on Instagram alongside an image of her sporting a white and red floral cut-out set.

Closer investigation on the brand’s holding site suggest that the intimates will incorporate a wide range of sizes, varying from 32A to 44DD for bras and XS to 3X for "undies".

Inclusivity has been a benchmark of all Rihanna's previous endeavours, and Savage X Fenty will be no different. A campaign video starring plus-size model Audrey Ritchie, which was posted on Instagram on April 29 with the caption, "Savages come in all shapes and sizes!! ya ready?", promotes the brand mantra of feeling comfortable in one’s skin. “I have really giant boobs,” Ritchie says in the short clip. “They were double-Ds by the time I was in the eighth grade. . . whichever gender you choose to have sex with, you should be proud and find yourself sexually.”

It is speculated that TechStyle Fashion Group is the financial backer behind the launch, however, a representative declined to make a comment to Vogue. The California-based parent company already has Kate Hudson’s Fabletics and Kim Kardashian’s ShoeDazzle in its portfolio, so another celebrity-endorsed brand would seem a natural investment.

The rapturous critical and commercial acclaim of Rihanna's Fenty beauty line (YouTube reported that there were 132 million views of Fenty Beauty-related content in the month after it launched in 2017) and the continued success of the Fenty x Puma collection of sports-meets-streetwear can leave no doubt that Savage x Fenty will launch to a mass audience hungry for its next Bad Gal products.

For now, sit back and watch the Savage x Fenty Instagram turn into the ultimate hype generator. Its teaser posts have garnered hundreds of thousands of followers already.

Dover Street Market Teams Up With HELLO!

“Rosie [Nixon] and I met under the perfume tower at Dover Street Market London this time last year, and over tequila we brainstormed how we could bring our worlds together,” Adrian Joffe, CEO of Comme des Garçons and DSM president, tells Vogue of 2018’s most arresting collaboration so far: HELLO! magazine and DSM.

“Some may think we are very different, but we both have a strong affection for communities,” Joffe continues of the tie-up, which is in aid of the magazine’s 30th birthday. “The idea of a family, and core sense of unwavering value.”

The duo invited established and emerging design talents to reinterpret the HELLO! logo on a piece of fashion, art or a limited-edition range, to be sold at DSM London. Proceeds will go to two charities that Joffe and Nixon have worked with for many years – Sentebale, of which Prince Harry is a founding patron, and 7: the David Beckham UNICEF fund – because, Joffe says, “It’s always nice to support a philanthropic project when we have the opportunity.”

Participating designers include Stella McCartney, Molly Goddard, Charles Jeffrey, Ashley Williams, Itchy Scratchy Patchy, Stephen Jones and CHAOS. Each designer will showcase their merchandise on a unique HELLO! newsstand created by set designer Andy Hillman for one week from the project launch on May 9.

So, how did the weekly, celeb-filled glossy end up on Joffe’s radar? It turns out the connoisseur of anti-establishment, conceptual creativity is a big fan, and reads it whenever he is in the UK. “I like that it has an identity and a positivity,” he explains. “HELLO! means the beautiful and happy side of life: inspiration and aspiration.”

His brief to the designers, who are all in Joffe’s DSM family, is rooted in his admiration for the magazine’s consistent messaging since its inception in the late Eighties. “HELLO! has a strength in its branding and message, the logo is so clear that it’s become iconic, and it has always stuck to its values. At DSM we admire strong and iconic logos. It’s been exciting to be the first to play with it.”

His statement that “each [designer has] brought something new and unexpected to the project” is spot on. Within the collection there are phone cases, watches, caps, keyrings, mugs and T-shirts all celebrating the bold red-and-white front cover of Britain’s much-loved weekly.

For Charles Jeffrey, who created a series of tees with fake slogans, it was a straightforward project: “There are a few natural alignments between HELLO!'s visual language and some of our LOVERBOY signatures,” he tells Vogue. “In very simple visual terms, we work with bold colours – red and white features heavily – and from a more design-driven perspective, we also work with the idea of newspaper or magazine headlines as one of our signatures.” His is “a fun line-up”, also comprising berets, keyrings and some jersey pieces with Pictish signs and symbols, because, “doing something that doesn't take itself too seriously is always OK by me.”

Molly Goddard approached the branding in its most literal form: “HELLO! became MOLLY!” she says, recalling the inspiration for her merch: “I thought about having a cup of tea reading HELLO! and needing a napkin for my biscuits.”

Charlotte Stockdale and Katie Lyall of CHAOS also stayed true to its first incarnation: “We love the original logo and thought it was hilarious to turn HELLO! into GOODBYE,” the duo, who still buy the magazine for its “informative and also immensely entertaining” red carpet and royal family reports, explain. As well as a line of phone cases and travel accessories, CHAOS created a mini-magazine in homage to their view of HELLO! as “a window to a world that sometimes you just wished you lived in and sometimes you were glad you didn’t!”

George Bamford, who grew up with HELLO! on his kitchen table shares a similar perception of the magazine: “It means going through the keyhole into people’s lives.” He took the logo and put it onto the dial of Bamford’s Mayfair watch – “the exclamation mark really makes it pop!” – and found the colour scheme liberating in its simplicity: “I have a saying... simplify, don’t complicate.”

Stephen Jones also used the logo “exactly as it is, because it’s fantastic, and who would want to change it?” and splashed it across hats because, “I love the idea of a hat saying HELLO!”. The magazine was revolutionary to him, because he had never seen anything like it before, and, he says, “HELLO! is the most fantastic name for a magazine ever! It was a pleasure to be able to put that on a hat.”

Ashley Williams, in contrast, gave HELLO! a new existence on neon-coloured jersey and jewellery. Though she can’t claim she’s still an avid reader, she enjoys looking at who’s gracing the cover in the newsagents: “It’s really iconic, the logo is arresting and they capture cultural moments on their covers.”

It’s Itchy Strachy Patchy’s interpretation that took HELLO! to unexpected new heights: “We’ve been looking for a reason to do an Itchy Scratchy Patchy condom for ages!,” Edie Campbell laughs. “The image that we shot to run alongside the product, and for the packaging, is absolutely hilarious. It’s Christabel [MacGreevy] and I in nurses’ scrubs handing out condoms to anyone with an itchy scratchy patch.”

Nixon’s description of the HELLO! X DSM collab as the celebration of "La Spuma de la Vida", the froth of life, was never more fitting.

From May 9, with a separate online auction for HELLO! at de Pury to attract bids for money-can’t-buy items items, which will raise more money for the chosen charities.