YStyle Picks

Lucky break

MANILA, Philippines - Last summer, beloved Teen Vogue beauty director Eva Chen announced her resignation from the magazine and took her time with planning out her next move, although she stayed active on her highly followed social media accounts. Then, last April 10 a rep from Lucky magazine confirmed that Condé Nast artistic director Anna Wintour brought in Chen as the magazine’s consulting editor to help editor in chief Brandon Holley save the magazine. Now, it’s been made pretty clear what Wintour was planning all along: This week it was announced that Chen would be replacing Holley at Lucky. “From the streets of New York City to Shanghai and everywhere in between, Eva is the quintessential Lucky girl,” Wintour said in a Condé-issued statement. “Lucky’s September issue will be her first opportunity to showcase her leadership ability, and I have every confidence she will meet the moment head-on.” Ouch. The editrix strikes again. Chen commented on her appointment saying, “I have long admired Lucky’s unique point of view in the fashion industry. It’s an exciting time for the brand as technology empowers and inspires the Lucky girl to embrace her own personal style.”

Back to Black

Days after releasing posters online with the mystery endorser’s face blurred, last Wednesday, Bench announced that their latest “Global Benchsetter” was Taylor Lautner. Interestingly, last June 2011, STAR columnist Ricky Lo leaked that Lautner was in talks with the brand. We guess it took a whole year for him to be proven right. The actor, who shot to fame after portraying the werewolf character Jacob Black in the popular Twilight franchise, will be joining the ranks of fellow “Global Benchsetters,” like Michael Trevino, Jessica Sanchez, Adam Levine, Liam Hemsworth, Lucy Hale, Joe Jonas and Bruno Mars. The actor’s ad campaign was shot last month at L.A. At the press conference following the announcement, Bench founder Ben Chan told journalists that Lautner was extremely pleasant in person and didn’t have any extraordinary demands prior to the shoot. He also joked that he didn’t ask the oft-shirtless Hollywood actor to endorse Bench Underwear because his professional fees might be tripled.

The new menswear

The recurrence of the crop top trend has been frightening enough for us womenfolk, so we couldn’t imagine how much worse it could get. And now, the worst has arrived: crop tops for dudes. #SRSLY #WHY

Menswear designer J.W. Anderson led the way, sending down male models in embroidered lace halters, crop tops and one-shoulder capelets down the runway on the second day of London Collections: Men. “We honed in on different proportions…to find something new in menswear, you have to go further to reduce, and go further again to try to redefine a silhouette,” the designer told WWD. This is hardly the first time he has sent down a gender-bending menswear collection — last May he designed a capsule collection for the Versace-owned Versus that he says added a "sharpness to the bridging of male and female. Apart from Anderson, Astrid Andersen and Sibling also sent down their own versions of crop tops for men in varying fits, drapery and... transparency. Strangeness aside, though, we have to admit that these clothes still exibited beautiful craftsmanship, but we guess straight men will be sticking to last season’s clothing.

Active stances

Following a series of disasters that occurred in garment factories in Bangladesh that claimed the lives of over 1,000 people in total, the US Congress has finally passed a bill to address the country’s safety issues. The proposed legislation would require all licensed and branded military apparel to be produced in compliance with the Bangladesh Safety Accord, a legally-binding agreement which would require retailers to help finance the fire and safety improvements needed in Bangladesh factories. “Our goal is not to stop or slow the Bangladesh garment industry. I believe that this country is an important US ally,” Representative George Miller said of the bill. As for the fast fashion retail brands that outsourced their production in the country, 50 international chains, including H&M and Abercrombie & Fitch, have signed in accord with the agreement, with the exception of a few large apparel companies, like Wal-Mart and Gap. In their defense, Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke told WWD, “We are allowing third-party companies to inspect and approve factories from a structural standpoint. We now are trying to redouble the efforts on the areas of auditing, inspecting and training.”

Fashion victims

Last Wednesday, writer Jenna Sauers from feminist pop culture blog Jezebel was livid when Vice magazine posted images from their fashion spread entitled “Last Words” from their 2013 Fiction Issue. Featuring lookalike models posing as authors Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Iris Chang and Charlotte Perkins as they were about to commit suicide, she wrote, “These weren’t fictional characters; these were real women, who lived and struggled and died, and to treat their lowest moments as fodder for a silly fashion spread is shameful and sad.” Immediately, the mag was criticized by other news websites for being “breathtakingly tasteless” and for “glorifying” suicide. Pretty soon, the magazine pulled the images from their website, but not without releasing a statement: “The fashion spreads in Vice magazine are always unconventional and approached with an art editorial point-of-view rather than a typical fashion photo-editorial one... ‘Last Words’ was created in this tradition and focused on the demise of a set of writers whose lives we very much wish weren’t cut tragically short, especially at their own hands. We will no longer display ‘Last Words’ on our website and apologize to anyone who was hurt or offended.”

Fashion confidential

Even though Nicholas Ghesquière left Balenciaga way back in November of last year and the house has moved on with Alexander Wang, apparently the drama between Ghesquière and his former employers isn’t over yet. Kering, the company formerly known as PPR, which owns Balenciaga, announced that they would be filing a lawsuit against Ghesquière for “breach of duty of confidentiality” after the designer’s tell-all interview with System magazine last April. In the intwerview, Ghesquière mentioned that “There wasn’t really any direction... I heard people saying, ‘Your style is so Balenciaga now, it’s no longer Nicolas Ghesquière.’ It all became so dehumanized. I began to feel as though I was being sucked dry, like they wanted to steal my identity while trying to homogenize things. It just wasn’t fulfilling anymore.” Interestingly, the announcement came amid rumors that Ghesquière is in talks to potentially replace Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton.

25 years of Kylie

Last June 18, 300 fans squeezed in front of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York to catch a glimpse of Australian pop star Kylie Minogue for the launch of her retrospective fashion tome, Kylie Fashion. The book contains hundreds of rare and unseen photos, sketches and paparazzi shots taken over the singer’s 25-year career and includes an introduction by Jean Paul Gaultier and commentary from fellow designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana and Karl Lagerfeld. Elle interviewed Minogue about the editing process and she revealed that going “on tour is easier than doing a book; it is an extraordinary amount of work. The hardest part is deciding what to leave out. It is like your wardrobe or your handbag — as big as it is you want to put more in.” Speaking of handbags, Kylie was spotted in London last June 11 carrying her Bally Papillon handbag in black and green. Looking amazing in jeans and boots with her hair in an chic updo, we guess she doesn’t have “off-days” like us regular people.