Fashion & Trend: September 2020

Wednesday 30 September 2020

Fashion with Trend

Following their Emmys sweep earlier this month, Schitt’s Creek shot to the top of global social media charts. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Canadian show reached No. 1 on its Social Climbers chart, a weekly list ranking the most popular TV personalities and shows on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

The chart’s methodology “blends engagement to entities’ social media accounts along with weekly additions of followers/subscribers,” and is based on global data provided by social media analytics company MVP. For the first time ever, Schitt’s Creek snagged the top spot in THR’s Top Scripted list, recording gains in all social metrics this past week. It received 3.4 million Instagram favourites, up 3,781%; and 982,000 Twitter likes, a boost of 3,239%.

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Huge, huge, massive, enormous congratulations to the entire cast and crew of Schitt's Creek for winning the Outstanding Comedy Series #Emmy! Wishing everyone could have been together tonight to celebrate 🤍🖤💛

A post shared by Schitt's Creek (@schittscreek) on Sep 20, 2020 at 11:24pm PDT

In addition, Dan Levy (who took home Emmys for writing, directing and acting that night) entered the Top Actors list for the first time. His social media metrics included 1.8 million Instagram favourites and 1.3 million Twitter likes, plus 98,000 new Instagram followers and 83,000 new Twitter followers. Other actors on the list dated September 30 include Dwayne Johnson, Viola Davis, Jennifer Aniston and Henry Cavill.

Though Schitt’s Creek had been on the air for six seasons, it was only during its final season that it racked up a whopping 15 Emmy nominations (earning four nods but no wins in its prior season). Its 9 Emmy wins this year make it the only comedy to ever have taken home so many statuettes in a single season. The 2020 awards ceremony also marked the first time in Emmys history that one show swept all four acting categories—Annie Murphy, Catherine O’Hara, Dan Levy and Eugene Levy all took home awards for their portrayal of the iconic Roses.

The final season of the show aired on CBC from January through April 2020, but it’s only landing on Netflix now. Mark your calendars, season 6 drops on the streaming platform on October 7.

The post <em>Schitt’s Creek</em> Topped Social Media Charts After the Emmys appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Fashion with Trend

When Sammi Smith, founder of the Toronto-based loungewear label Soft Focus, began designing looks for the brand’s Fall 2020 offering, she didn’t know what kind of world we’d be living in today. But Smith–who was dealing with the burnout experienced by many entrepreneurs–was nevertheless in the right mind frame for conceiving of pieces that would hit the spot in our closets right now.

“Running a small business is a marathon and a sprint,” she says. “The year was winding down, and I had a cold. I literally designed this collection in bed.” The designs were “coming from an emotional place,” Smith says, and she was aiming to craft items that “what [would] make me feel whole.” That meaning, she wanted a wardrobe that suited her WFH lifestyle–one that includes days spent totally indoors, or that factor in a bit of socializing and “endless errand running.”

canadian design — Photography by Vai Yu Law.

What she ended up with was an assortment of cozy attire that’s anything but your standard sweats; key pieces are separates that comprise the Terry Set–a boxy top and tapered jogging pants that come in an elegant cream colour, classic black and a few pops of brights. “I’d worked in primarily neutrals for the first couple of seasons of the brand,” Smith says of the three-year-old line. “I was growing tired of that ‘perfect’ Instagram minimalism that pervaded everything. I wanted a jolt of life. I was craving colour and a playful maximalist aesthetic, but rooted in the simplicity of my pieces.” She says that capturing the nostalgia of the colour palettes used by retro athleisure brands like Esprit and United Colours of Benetton drew her to use shades of yellow, red and purple.

An ‘80s mood is also highlighted elsewhere in the collection, like the robe-style jacket modelled after a blazer. Smith says the inspiration for it was “Melanie Griffith in the movie Working Girl, when she’s on her way to work and is wearing her sneakers but has her heels in her bag.” And there’s a belted jumpsuit that just screams ‘I’m comfortable but in control’–is there a better way to feel while navigating everything life is throwing at us these days?

There’s another important headspace Smith was channeling while working on the looks. “Joy was a big word for me when I was designing this collection,” she says, adding that she wanted the pieces to “become an instant mood lift when you put [them] on. Life is very hard and serious being an adult–I love bringing a sense of playfulness and a childlike quality into a sophisticated sensibility.”

Smith has also translated this uplifting appeal into Soft Focus’s holiday pieces (available in early November), which riff off the vibe of style icons like Bianca Jagger living it up on the dance floor of Studio 54. “[I was] playing around with the idea of fancy pyjamas that you can wear all day, anywhere,” she says. From a sultry jumpsuit to an easy-but-elegant slip, the pieces turn “every day into an occasion,” Smith notes.

In this way, Smith flips the notion of what a WFH wardrobe can be; while we’re all seeking out a sense of solace through our way of dressing, it doesn’t mean we can’t derive a bit of pleasure and power from it as well. “You need intentional pieces of clothing,” she says about submitting to a more relaxed silhouette that still has a structure and sense of refinement. “There’s an aspect of self-care to it.”

The post The New Pieces From Toronto Brand Soft Focus Are a WFH Dream appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Fashion with Trend

Nordstrom Canada has joined the growing list of department stores, designers and e-tailers worldwide to go fur-free. Plus, the Seattle-born company is also going one step further by banning exotic skins, too (making it the first retailer in the US to do so). The materials will be phased out of all brick-and-mortar and online stores by the end of 2021.

The company says the move was prompted by growing customer feedback and following conversations with the Humane Society of the United States. “As part of our ongoing product evolution, we’ve been working with the Humane Society of the United States and recently made the decision to stop offering products made with genuine fur or exotic animal skin in any of our stores or online. Our private label brands haven’t used these materials for years, so extending this policy to all the brands we carry is a natural next step for our business,” Teri Bariquit, the company’s chief merchandising officer, said in a statement.

The company outlined further details of the policy online, noting that the banned furs include mink, fox, lynx, chinchilla, rabbit, coyote, astrakhan/karakul lamb, kangaroo and raccoon dog, among others – in line with the Fur Free Alliance’s guidelines around animals that are killed solely for their fur. The exotic skins policy includes (but is not limited to) lizard, snake, python, alligatorm crocodile, ostrich, kangaroo, and stingray. Nordstrom also outlined that it will continue to sell leather goods made from the byproducts of the meat, agriculture and livestock industries, feathers and down products that are not sourced via live plucking and shearling and calf hair products.

In a release, Kitty Block, the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, added, “This is a pivotal step toward a more humane business model and a safer world for animals, sending a clear message that animals should not suffer for the sake of fashion. Nordstrom’s decision will surely have a ripple effect on other influential fashion leaders.”

The post Nordstrom Canada Announces it Will Stop Selling Fur and Exotic Skins appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Tuesday 29 September 2020

Fashion with Trend

Meet Jacinta Kanakaratnam, the Toronto-based founder of The Veddas, a super-curated and locally-made men’s grooming line made up of simply a beard oil and balm. Pulling inspiration from Ayurvedic wellness, a centuries-old Indian practice centered around healing, the finance-professional-turned-grooming-entrepreneur, who’s of Sri Lankan heritage, was inspired to create her own line of beard products geared towards men of colour after being fed up with the lack of representation in advertising, harmful masculinity narratives and a workplace beard restriction her husband faced. Here, she shares, in her own words, more about her company’s DNA.

On what sparked her passion to start her own men’s grooming line:

“I just found that product advertising didn’t speak to men of colour. Everything I was seeing was very much targeted towards the Caucasian male, yet that’s not what everyone looks like. There was very rarely a person of colour being advertised and even in the last five years, there’s only been a handful. I started to think: How many men of colour are dealing with the same insecurities that women deal with? How many of them do not have access to a product that speaks to them and that they felt comfortable using? So, I thought it was time to create something. I just thought it was important that men of colour feel seen and catered to. Creating some sort of diversity on shelves was important for me. Toxic masculinity in product advertising also weighed heavily on me and I began wondering who was thinking about the LGBTQ person of colour.”

On the coincidental moment with her husband that sparked more passion:

“I had this bizarre happenstance where my husband, who’s also Sri Lankan, came home and told me he had to shave because C-suite executives and the CEO of his company were coming in from the U.S. He had a full beard at the time and said, ‘I’ve heard that they prefer when guys in the office are clean shaven.’ He was just starting off at this company and thought that he would be able to get ahead by virtue of shaving. He was also told by someone in his office, ‘You better shave because they’ll respect you more. They don’t like to see beards.’

I’ve never worked in a place where I’ve been told what to do with my hair and I was flat out outraged. I don’t agree that clean-shaven should be mandatory unless there’s health implications. I just started thinking about how [it was possible that] people could correlate someone’s worth and performance capacity with their facial hair? It was just wild to me and weighed heavily on me. I mean, we’ve got friends who are Islamic, Sikh and Jewish and who grow beards, and I started to think about how difficult it must be for those men to have to look a certain way that’s divorced from their faith in order to climb the corporate ladder. So, I started to really believe that the men in our community needed something for them, but not targeted at them in a way that they felt a pressure to purchase a product that would make them feel more manly or a specific way.”

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A post shared by The Veddas (@the_veddas) on Sep 21, 2020 at 11:02am PDT

On other key values of her brand:

“I thought it was important to create grooming products for men in the hope that hearing about the brand would start a conversation about self-care. And in talking about self-care, men would take it a step further and also take care of their mental and physical health.”

On her target customer:

“I envision my customer as someone that is growing a beard (despite whatever picture society has painted men to look like) and who wants to start very small in terms of a grooming routine as well as keep their beard looking neat. They care about clean grooming, anti-toxic ingredients and taking the time to pay attention to themselves.”

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Abhyanga is the practice of self-massage. There are a few ways to do it. It involves using a warmed oil all over the body (if you want to see that, not today – maybe on @onlyfansofficial ) . We encourage you to try to incorporate this tradition when doing miniscule tasks, such as applying beard balm or oil. Take a breath, exhale, center yourself, close your eyes & apply the oil or balm deeply into your skin. Even 60 seconds of mindful application with our aromatic balms & oils creates rewarding relaxation. You can choose an oil according to your Ayurvedic dosha. If you do not "know" your dosha, use a dosha neutral oil like jojoba (which is in our oil & balm)👌🏽 A true Abhyanga session can be up to a 45 minutes. However, in just 10 to 15 minutes a day, you can get the benefits of abhyanga massage including relaxation, better sleep, stress reduction, smoother hydrated skin, improved circulation, improved lymph drainage. What a long caption, can also we take a moment to swoon over the before and after aesthetic !? All our research & content is copywritten💛 Not for use without consent💛 DM us. We don't bite, so don't bite our content 😂 #abhyanga #beardabhyanga #ayurveda #beardlife #tradition #vedic #ayurvedicbeard #stronghair #massage #grooming #relaxation #meditate #style #mensstyle #beardstyle #facemassage #morningroutine #eveningroutine #centered #indiebeauty #cleanbeauty #torontostrong #ontariostrong #mensgrooming #decolonizingwellness #beforeandafter #malemodel #tamilbeard #pandemicbeard #guasha

A post shared by The Veddas (@the_veddas) on Jul 10, 2020 at 12:00pm PDT

On The Veddas’s hero ingredients:

“We are all natural and don’t contain any parabens or chemicals. And we don’t do animal testing. The ingredient blend that’s very important to us is coconut oil, grape seed oil, jojoba oil and argan oil because they all have antioxidants, vitamins and minerals that work together to combat skin issues. The blend is anti-inflammatory, so it’s really good to tame any chaffing, itching or chapping that usually results from having a beard. We also have rosemary extract which stimulates hair growth. That’s a super important ingredient for us since we tag our products as Ayurvedic, which is an old concept of natural healing.”

On being made locally:

“For the first year or so, I was definitely a kitchen chemist. I traveled to Sri Lanka about four or five times during product development to research and speak to Ayurvedic practitioners about what types of ingredients were important. I would bring ingredients back with me and mix everything myself. It took about a year of product formulation to get things right. Then I started thinking about working smarter and looked into manufacturing professionals based in Ontario to help. It’s one thing to make things in your kitchen and be like, ‘I’m going to sell to family and friends.’ But if you’re looking to really get your products out there, I think from the jump you need to work with someone that understands Canada’s guidelines on producing and selling cosmetics or anything natural.”

On the brand name, The Veddas:

“The name references ‘Vedas’ which are ancient religious texts found throughout the Indian subcontinents that provide guidance and rituals on living a healthy life. They’re basically very old scriptures.”

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#founderstory #ancestry #hairstory #gtabarbers #torontobarbershops #muslimbeard #brownbeard #canadianbeard #menshealth #ayurvedichaircare #selfcare #mensselfcare #indianbeard #blackbeard #beardstyle #mensstyle #punjabibeard #ayurveda #wellnessjourney #covidbeardchallenge #covidbeard #coronabeard #tamilbeard #canadianmensstyle #canadianstyle #cleanbeautycanada #cleanbeauty #ecobeauty #torontostrong #mentalhealthawareness

A post shared by The Veddas (@the_veddas) on Jul 13, 2020 at 9:55am PDT

Missed our last My Story column? Click here.

The post My Story: How Jacinta Kanakaratnam is Putting Men of Colour Front and Centre Via Her Grooming Line appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Fashion with Trend

The shows have wrapped in Milan for the Spring 2021 season and now the street style set has moved across to Paris for the final fashion week shows. Much like the weeks before it, Paris Fashion Week will see a mix of physical and digital presentations across the next few days.

Dior kicked things off in the French capital today, showing an extensive collection of 86 pieces at the Tuileries Garden – many of which were Zoom call-appropriate. In the following days, Kenzo, Chloé, Hermès and Louis Vuitton will also present physical shows to socially distanced guests, whilst others like Mugler, Elie Saab and Miu Miu have chosen to go digital this season.

Despite a busy schedule in Milan, the street style set is showing no signs of fashion fatigue, serving up plenty of ‘gram-worthy looks on day one alone. Neutral and monochromatic colour-blocking are key trends for the season, so too are statement coats – especially those with attention-grabbing sleeves. Plaid is also starting strong as the print of choice for the pack. Scroll through the gallery below to see the best street style looks from Paris Fashion Week Spring 2021 so far: