Fashion & Trend

Eco-friendly, sustainably-sourced beauty may populate the shelves of skincare shops today, but cosmetics with a conscience is something The Body Shop has been doing for 25 years. Ever since launching her “Trade Not Aid” campaign back in 1987, to “alleviate suffering and poverty around the world”, founder Dame Anita Roddick—who passed away in 2007—has planted the company’s roots firmly in fair trade and community outreach. This week, the British brand perpetuated that legacy of activism with a new line of shea butter-based products , aimed at delivering high-quality ingredients to customers while supporting local economies—and, specifically, the women who work within them. The brand has been collaborating with the Tungteiya Women’s Association since 1994, an initiative that started out with 50 members and today comprises 640, spread across 11 villages in northern Ghana. The West African country has seen the shea tree (vitellaria paradoxa) flourish for thousands of years, as well a...

There’s a very specific formula to talk shows: ask a few questions, sets up a pre-arranged anecdote, roll a promotional clip. There are, of course, a few twists that have been introduced in recent years to add some excitement—and encourage a viral video. If you’re sitting down with Ellen, there’s a chance a clown will pop out to scare you; if you’re making an appearance on Jimmy Fallon, you may be asked to participate in a lip sync battle; if you’re dropping by James Corden, you could end up eating a calf’s brain. The onus to create an amusing talk show bit falls heavily on the celebrity guest, and every once in a while, an unexpected A-lister gifts the world a moment of spontaneous, hilarious and endearing entertainment. With the Talk Show Guest Hall of Fame, we commemorate these celebs.  Since the day Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga stepped out together at the Venice Film Festival , holding hands down the red carpet into the premiere of A Star is Born , their off-screen relat...

The third annual iteration of Hot Docs’ Curious Minds Weekend speaker series, in collaboration with The Globe & Mail , takes place this weekend and as always, the line-up is impressive. “It’s been almost three years since we launched our inaugural speaker series and the world is no less crazy or confounding,” said Will Di Novi, lead curator of Curious Minds Weekend. “Against this backdrop, we hope this Festival can continue to offer a kind of intellectual oasis—a sanctuary where thoughtful people can engage with dynamic speakers and put the noise outside the theatre into a little more context and perspective.” The weekend kicks off on Friday, March 1 with Donna Brazile, former chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, and Leah Daughtry, CEO of the 2008 and 2016 Democratic National Conventions. As co-authors of the new book For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Politics , they will be speaking at the series about making politics more inclusive. New York Times editor—and...

Next month, Stevie Nicks will officially become the first female artist to be inducted twice into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which I almost typed as Hawl of Fame because it’s hard to conjure a picture of the music icon without summoning a vision of her onstage in one of her dramatic shawls. Over the years, we’ve seen her in shawls that are fringed, sequinned, crocheted, lacy. She’s amassed quite the collection, and in a recent interview with Rolling Stone she revealed that all those shawls are in excellent condition, stored carefully in a temperature-controlled vault. She also said that there are SO MANY shawls that she’s actually trying to give some of them away (where do we sign up?!). Here’s her full response, when asked by Rolling Stone’ s Rob Sheffield where she keeps all those legendary pieces: “I have my shawl vault — they’re all in temperature-controlled storage. I have these huge red cases Fleetwood Mac bought, all the way back in 1975 — my clothes are saved in th...

I have a confession to make that feels somewhat sacrilegious: I was never that into Phoebe Philo’s Céline. “Muted,” “understated,” and “quiet” are traits I find useful in an apartment building but not necessarily my wardrobe, where I prefer to dabble in such timeless trends as ‘mall goth’ and ‘prairie dresses.’ I just don’t find minimalism visually stimulating and will forever remember the time period between 2012-2016 as a fashion void where everyone was trying to channel either sexy Steve Jobs or a cult leader . That said, it was still disheartening to watch as the cohesive brand identity Philo had singlehandedly created for Céline was razed to the ground by her successor in favour of ahistorical, overpriced clubwear. No one in the industry could fathom which brand would pick up where Philo left off. Would it be The Row, who charges upwards of $1000 for a modest-looking cashmere sweater? Even Gabrielle Boucinha , the mastermind behind @oldceline , wasn’t quite sure....

Within seven walking minutes from my Toronto home, there are four grocery stores, three drug stores and at least a dozen corner stores selling everything from plants to peanut butter. And yet, when I need to restock on toilet paper, I turn to Amazon—where a host of other site-recommended cleaning products, books and gadgets usually find their way into my shopping cart. I’ve managed to convince myself that the delivery packaging itself is not wasteful: cardboard boxes are an excellent vessel for holding, transporting and dumping other recyclable items. There is, however, an environmental impact of our culture of convenient consumption that I hadn’t considered: shipping emissions. Transport has overtaken electricity as the #1 offender of carbon emissions, and the e-commerce norm of fast, free shipping is a massive contributor. Etsy—the global marketplace where you can shop pet portraits, handknit scarves and mid-century sofas—is the first e-commerce company to do something ab...

J. Crew has seen a lot of change over the past few years, with the departure of CEO Mickey Drexler earlier this year. But the most recent change is a promising one: J. Crew has announces that Chris Benz will lead the company as the new head of women’s design. He joins from Bill Blass, the American fashion house where he held the role of creative director since 2015. Photography by Amy Sussman/REX/Shutterstock If Benz’s name sparks some familiarity, that’s because the formerly pink-haired designer founded his own quirky ready-to-wear line in 2007, featuring kooky prints and bright colours that earned him the nickname, “The Prince of Colour.” Despite his status as a critical darling, the Chris Benz line folded in 2012. This isn’t Benz’s first stint at J. Crew either. From 2005 to 2006, he worked under then-creative director Jenna Lyons before branching off to start his own line. “J.Crew is where I started my career and I have always loved the inspired mix of things – colour and pat...

Celebration , a documentary by filmmaker Olivier Meyrou depicting legendary couturier Yves Saint Laurent preparing his final collection, was first screened at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2007. It was not screened again publicly until 2018. As it turns out, one of the central characters in the film, YSL’s business manager Pierre Bergé, had not signed a release form authorizing the use of his image and successfully able to block distribution of the film until his death last year. Stitched together from a sparse 18 hours of footage captured by Meyrou between the years 1998 and 2001, Celebration is an unsparing and not-altogether-flattering portrait of one of the most important fashion figures of the 20 th  century. Now, the film that was essentially suppressed from viewing will have its first screening in Canada on April 6th, 2019, at the Fox Theatre in Toronto, presented by Archival Toronto . According to  Variety , Celebration paints Saint Laurent as a “reclu...

 Eighth Grade I might forgive you if you missed Eighth Grade  during its limited theatre release this past summer. I won’t forgive you, however, if you continue to sleep on this tender coming-of-age film once it’s accessible via cell phone. Comedian Bo Burnham’s directorial debut charmed critics and audiences with its brutally honest portrayal of adolescent awkwardness, earning itself a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes and multiple Independent Spirit and Gotham Independent Film awards. It will make you cringe, laugh, cry and feel tremendous gratitude for the fact that you aren’t a middle school student in the age of Snapchat and YouTube vlogging. Available March 1 Queer Eye: Season 3 It’s been just over a year since the new Fab Five were introduced to the world , becoming the most talked about makeover tribe on the internet. In the third season of the ultra-successful Netflix rebo0t, Tan France, Antoni Porowski, Karamo Brown, Bobby Berk, and Jonathan Van Ness hit the road and he...

Ever wake up in the middle of the night completely paralyzed but totally cognizant of the fact that you can’t move your limbs? Chances are you’ve experienced sleep paralysis. Here, a breakdown on the ever-so-elusive sleep disorder and what you can do if you have it. What is sleep paralysis? Some chalk up sleep paralysis to supernatural causes, or an urban legend dubbed the “night hag.” Well, turns out sleep paralysis is a real thing. It affects approximately 7.6 per cent of people worldwide (Kendall Jenner reported experiencing episodes back in 2016 ), and in Canada alone, it affects “about half of the population at some point in their lives,” says Dr. Brian Murray, head of the division of neurology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. Sleep paralysis occurs during the final sleep stage (we go through a total of five periods during a sleep cycle): the REM (rapid eye movement) sleep stage. “In REM sleep we are essentially paralyzed, except for breathing and eye movement...

I remember my first pair of Vans . It was the summer of 2014 and the now-ubiquitous sneaker craze was just beginning to take hold. I decided to dip my toes into the trend with a pair of crisp; white Eras, so fresh and full of promise. I loved the chunkiness of the platform sole — an adult version of the Keds I kicked around in as a kid – and couldn’t wait to defile their blinding whiteness with layers of grime. How punk rock. So imagine my disappointment when I unboxed the shoes, so fresh and full of promise, to discover they were not actually that comfortable. I was used to mincing around in leather-soled Victorian booties and was hugely surprised that a pair of sneakers could somehow be less comfortable than my everyday fussy footwear. Wasn’t that, like, the point of sneakers? To provide the maximum amount comfort this cruel world can afford? And yet, these shoes were stiff as a board. I begrudgingly wore them for a few months until realizing they made me look like a total poser an...

It seems that the members of the Academy have a sweet affinity for the city landscape of their chilly, northern neighbour. On the heels of last year’s best picture win for A Shape of Water —the Guillermo del Toro fish sex film shot in recognizable scenes around the 6ix—the Oscar for Best Animated Short went to Bao , a film about a Chinese-Canadian woman raising her dumpling child in Toronto’s Spadina Street Chinatown. Accepting the award was Domee Shi, a graduate of the animation program Sheridan college whose family moved to Toronto from Chongquing, China when she was three-years-old. Shi wrote and directed the film, becoming the first woman ever to direct a Pixar short and the first female director nominated for Best Animated Short since the Oscars debuted the category in 1932. And now, the award’s first female winner. “For all of the nerdy girls who hide behind their sketchbooks, don’t be afraid to tell your stories to the world,” said Shi in her acceptance speech, stand...

After ten years working the international fashion show circuit, Olivia Colacci opened her hair studio   Twentyseven  in an effort to slow down, but the Toronto native isn’t staying away from the rollercoaster-paced thrill and surreal glam of fashion week completely. “Fashion week is the best education I could get,” says Colacci. “I learn firsthand the newest trends and hair techniques from the best of the best—hair stylists I’ve followed for years, pinning up their work and dissecting their hairstyles. It’s priceless.” Colacci’s plan is to do one city per season and alternate so she spent last week in Milan working with the likes of Guido Palau and James Pecis and gave us the scoop on the looks she helped create. Natural The natural look was well-represented in Milan—a stark contrast to the high-concept stylings we saw  over in London . At Etro, Colacci worked alongside James Pecis to create undone texture, neither too tightly curled, artificially waved nor straightene...