From jaw-dropping fashion like Harry Styles’ Brit Awards leisure suit to heartfelt speeches from artists like Taylor Swift, the 2021 Brit Awards were filled with bold statements. As the U.K.’s first large-scale indoor event since COVID-19, the guest list was limited and tables were spaced out to avoid overcrowding. But despite necessary pandemic restrictions, this year’s Brit Awards were a genuine celebration of musical talent.
The May 11, 2021 event stands in stark contrast to the 2020 Brit Awards, which were widely criticized for favouring male artists, with only one woman receiving a nomination across 25 slots in the mixed-gender categories.
This year’s Brit Awards were dominated by pop star Dua Lipa, who won Best British Female Solo Artist and British Album of the year for her album “Future Nostalgia.” She wore a custom Vivienne Westwood corseted mini dress with an extravagant train, platform heels and thigh-high mesh stockings for the occasion, along with a retro beehive hairdo. In her acceptance speech, the artist notably called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to raise the pay for National Health Service (NHS) frontline workers. But Dua Lipa wasn’t the only attending artist whose speech made waves.
Wearing a bedazzled Miu Miu set, Taylor Swift graced the 2021 Brit Awards as the first woman to win the Global Icon award. In her acceptance speech, she shouted out boyfriend Joe Alwyn and longtime BFF Selena Gomez, and left us with some great advice: “I need you to hear me when I say that there is no career path that comes free of negativity. If you’re being met with resistance, that probably means that you’re doing something new.”
Six out of seven winners in mixed gender categories were female, including the band Little Mix, sister trio Haim, Billie Eilish, and British singr Arlo Parks. Check out the gallery below to see our favourite looks from the Brit Awards red carpet 2021.
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
Photography by Getty Images
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Olivia Rodrigo in Dior
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Harry Styles in a Gucci suit and handbag
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Taylor Swift in Miu Miu
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Billy Porter in threeasFOUR and Rick Owens
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Haim in The Row
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Dua Lipa in Vivienne Westwood Couture
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Headie One in Louis Vuitton
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Little Mix in gowns from David Koma, Vivienne Westwood and Maison Margiela
The future of fashion weeks around the world have been the subject of great speculation for over a year now, with the Fall 2020 shows coming to a close just as the COVID-19 pandemic took a global hold. New York Fashion Week was laden with issues even before the crisis, though, with favourite designers taking their collections elsewhere and industry insiders wondering what to make of its long, hit-or-miss itinerary. In an effort to revitalize the event, IMG — the owner and producer of New York Fashion Week: The Shows, a central focus of the overall NYFW calendar — revealed this morning in a press event that it has forged a multi-year presenting partnership with the digital layaway company Afterpay (which is already a title sponsor of Australian Fashion Week and London Fashion Week).
The union will inject cash into upcoming seasons’ schedules and also facilitate new projects. One of the most hotly anticipated will be the “see now, buy now” collection presented by designer LaQuan Smith — a favourite of Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Jennifer Lopez. During the press conference, Smith said that he “felt a serious void releasing the last collection,” noting that “digital shows didn’t feel true to the brand” and that “there’s something about watching the way fabrics move on a runway” as well as the collective energy and excitement brought forth by spectators.
Additionally, today’s announcement marked the introduction of the IMG Fashion Alliance, a gathering of some of America’s most well-known and exciting brands including Rodarte, Telfar, Prabal Gurung, and Altuzarra (a label that saw its shows moved from New York to Paris several years ago). The aim of the Alliance is to coax invested players back to being excited about NYFW again with the promise of dazzling offerings by these designers. 11 labels have signed on to show during NYFW until next year through the initiative, and IMG will give funding and marketing support in return. “We have the power to shape what fashion should mean, and what it becomes,” Joseph Altuzarra enthused in a videotaped message that featured the designers who have entered into the IMG Fashion Alliance.
Despite its ups and downs in recent years, NYFW has been considered a major economic driver for the city, with upwards of $900 million per year generated through new job growth and tax revenue according to a 2017 report. So there’s no better time for these encouraging strides to be made, not just for the fashion world but the city itself. As Paloma Elsaesser, a supermodel on IMG’s roster, said during the morning’s announcement, “The energy of New York is on the rise.” And with other recent revelations like the fact Pyer Moss will be back to show during NYFW in September after a two-year hiatus, we’ll be watching what happens next.
Once upon a time, there was a fairy godmother. Glamorous and well-connected, she loved clothes, and was generous in granting wishes to people who made beautiful, unique things. With a tap of her wand, she funded scholarships and prizes, liberally dusting her chosen proteges with the kind of magic that drew the attention of other important people.
And then one day, she did something that shocked everyone: She posted a picture of herself on social media, smiling with a notorious ogre who despised the sort of inclusive, joyful self-expression she’d seemed to support herself, and she captioned it: “A special way to end the night!” The carriage turned into a pumpkin in a single Instagram Story.
To see her doing this not only broke the hearts of many in the kingdom — after all, the makers of the beautiful things she loved to support were also often the kinds of people that this ogre was especially cruel to — but it put them in a tricky spot. To speak out against this fairy godmother could mean cutting themselves off from one of the few sources of support for their craft in all the land, and banishing her from the kingdom was all but unthinkable, especially when her largesse had paid for much of it, from the schools where this craft was taught to the festivals that celebrate it, and dozens of red carpets and galas in between. And did we mention that this fashion fairy godmother was married to one of the most powerful lords in the court, whose family had their fingers in all kinds of pies — sports, telecom, media — across the land? It is no wonder a dark shadow has fallen across the kingdom, not lifting even when the fairy godmother attempted to apologize, saying she didn’t mean anything by that picture with the ogre, and she regrets sharing it.
We are telling you this dark fashion fairytale for two reasons: Not only is it an apropos way to chronicle the furor surrounding Suzanne Rogers, dubbed “Canada’s fashion fairy godmother,” but it’s also the simplest way to illustrate precisely why the events of May 1 — when she shared Instagram Stories of a visit to Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, including a picture with the man she called “The Donald” himself — have thrown Canada’s fashion industry into such an existential crisis. While a later statement says she took and posted the image “without considering the false assumptions and implications that would be made about my personal beliefs,” many interpreted Rogers’s presence at Trump’s HQ (and by his side) as an endorsement of the man and his politics, which have included banning transgender people from serving in the military, a travel ban on certain Muslim-majority countries, and a border policy that has separated thousands of migrant parents from their children, and characterized by countless dog-whistled racist, xenophobic and sexist remarks. For an industry that, at its best, embraces diversity of culture, sexuality, gender expression, it was an unpalatable — and deeply hurtful — pairing.
Suzanne Rogers attends the Suzanne Rogers presents Zac Posen Reception at the Carlu, on April 28, 2014 in Toronto, Canada. Photography by Getty Images.
Suzanne Rogers’s influence, by the numbers
If you’d prefer numbers, however, they tell an equally powerful tale of influence and inequity: Through the Suzanne and Ted Rogers Foundation, she has donated significant dollars to the industry to endow the Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute at Ryerson University and a prize worth $25,000 at the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards. This is in addition to her own personal wardrobe spend on Canadian couture (rumoured to be in the six figures annually), and the harder-to-quantify value bestowed when she is photographed in designer’s dress, or wears it to a society function where other wealthy people might see it, and want one for them. This was not just any socialite doing something controversial on social media. It was a socialite doing something controversial on social media who happened to also hold the purse strings that are a lifeline to designers in an industry that struggles to find meaningful financial support outside of the few prizes, scholarships and personal patronage of a select few, of which Suzanne Rogers is the most generous, and resultantly, one of the most influential.
Without a grant like the CAFA Award in her name (an organization that counts her husband Edward Rogers’s family business as a major media partner), or a place on the fellowship program she’s endowed at Ryerson (where the Rogers family, by the way, have donated $34 million over the years, including $10 million to the Ted Rogers School of Management, making them, by the institution’s own admission one of their “most generous” benefactors), a Canadian designer might find themselves in the sort of position that Andrew Coimbra, and many others like him, know as the everyday reality of trying to run a fashion label in Canada.
The cost of financing a fashion business in Canada
“My label has always been a side hustle,” says Coimbra, who launched his genderless line in 2015. “I’ve always had a full-time job to sustain myself and to inject into the label.” Unlike some in the industry, he hasn’t been able to rely on family money to fund his dream full-time, although his parents have helped him with smaller things, like hiring a model for a shoot which, in Canada, can be in the low hundreds of dollars. Other times, he’s had friends in the industry help him out for “mate’s rates,” or just for the love of it. (A common theme in this industry, by the way, where make-up artists, photographers, set designers and every other person who touches the fashion world have “volunteered” far more than they’ve been paid.) “Suffice to say it can be very challenging,” says Coimbra, who says his situation isn’t uncommon.
You might be wondering, of course, why it’s so hard for a fashion label to sustain itself financially. After all, isn’t the business model just they make clothes, customers buy them, and hey presto, you’re profitable? It’s not that simple, says Coimbra. Selling direct-to-consumer might work as an Etsy seller, but to compete in the world of high fashion, you need to get your line in front of buyers, who will then get it placed in the sorts of stores where your customer is likely to shop, or at least come across you for the first time. To do that, many designers sign with a sales agency, whose job it is to get buyers to pay attention to your label from among the thousands of others clamouring for a rack in Holt Renfrew or to be stocked on SSENSE. “When I’ve been approached by sales agencies wanting to represent my label, the rate I was quoted was anywhere from 3000 Euros to 5000 Euros, per season,” says Coimbra, noting that there are two of those per year. “That would mean a nearly $15,000 annual expense just to have my collection represented and shown to buyers. This doesn’t guarantee a buy, and it doesn’t include a commission rate that many sales agencies try to work out.” Oh, and this doesn’t include the cost to make samples of your designs or to shoot a look book. “The minimum seasonal spend on a collection averages at $15,000,” says Coimbra — and this is before you even begin production on the clothes you’ll actually be selling to customers or think about hiring any staff to support the business.
Government funding for fashion businesses in Canada — or lack thereof
In a perfect world, this is where government grants would step in to bridge that gap, providing life-changing seed money for new and emerging designers. Canada does have some programs that do this, but they are few and far between. In fact, Rogers herself acknowledged the bleakness of the funding landscape for Canadian designers, telling Refinery29 last year: “Designers have never had the opportunity for support from the highest level of our country, starting from the top with the government never giving grants, funding, or bursaries.” Quebec is the only province to offer government financial support for fashion businesses, and while the Toronto Fashion Incubator, funded by the city of Toronto, does offer showroom space for designers to exhibit their collections, and a prize that takes their collection to London Fashion Week, it’s more of a media opportunity than it is a chance get your clothes in front of buyers.
Other federal or provincial small business grants for start-up or small businesses are aimed at specific sectors — most often tech-related — while others are aimed at established businesses with a certain number of employees or annual revenue, over, say $100,000. “It’s a lot to ask of industry folk that more often than not are conducting their businesses in their off hours,” says Coimbra. “Setting the bar so high stunts the opportunity for anyone that doesn’t have access to a disposable income that would help them get to this point in the first place. It feels very exclusionary and — frankly — elitist.” That’s why he’d loved to see a tiered scale of grant funding, one that supports fashion businesses at every stage of their growth.
This is further exacerbated by the fact that fashion, unlike film, literature or visual arts, is not included in governmental culture portfolios, meaning creatives are shut out from funding like the one-time $25 million Ontario’s government injected into the provincial arts sector in 2020 to help them respond to the challenges of the pandemic — which, by the way, have been plentiful in the fashion sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced major chains like Addition Elle and Mendocino to shutter stores, household names like Aldo to file for bankruptcy, and countless small boutiques and labels to fold, taking jobs and dreams with them.
The role of privilege further complicates matters
That’s the thing: If someone like Andrew Coimbra, who comes from a financially stable family, has struggled to get a label off the ground, what hope do people from less privileged backgrounds have? For Lidia Tesfamicael and Luxi Mathi, we can’t talk about Canada’s lack of financial support for the fashion industry without talking about the dearth of equitable access within it. And not only that, but the role this scarcity of access plays in discouraging diversity and inclusivity in an industry that’s currently stuck in a system of a small handful of privileged (usually white) patrons supporting a small handful of talent, who, when their patron does something problematic are put in a very, very awkward position. “An entrepreneur’s or student’s finances are oftentimes the barrier between good talent and their success,” say the women, who founded a non-profit, Canada Fashion Network, that is working to be a platform where solutions for those barriers can be discussed.
“As entrepreneurs ourselves, both Lidia and I have faced the same difficulties Canadian creatives have while trying to launch a business,” says Mathi, a Tamil-Canadian who runs a model management company, while Tesfamicael, an Eritrean-Canadian, designs under the label Lidia Daniel. “The country is setting the entrepreneurs up for failure without them even knowing it,” the women say, pointing to a lack of a Canadian equivalent to the U.K.’s British Fashion Council, which is dedicated to promoting the fashion industry there at home and abroad. “There is no committee, governing body, or entity to guide the fashion community to success, teaching and setting standards in the industry across the nation,” Tesfamicael and Mathi say. They add that even something as small as a lack of government-sponsored market research can be an added burden to designers trying to pitch themselves to buyers, or plan their marketing or production strategy, and a lack of local manufacturing leads to absurd situations like Canada spending billions abroad on PPE, “when if those dollars were put into our own economy, it would have helped a lot of fashion entrepreneurs sustain their jobs, and and better support our infrastructure here in Canada.”
And when brands can barely keep their heads above water, the women point out, it feels impossible for the industry to even begin to tackle all of the unaddressed issues, like sustainability and diversity — or have the independent financial backbone to be able to speak against them when they see them.
Which is why the current state of the industry — where fashion entrepreneurs are beholden to private patrons like Suzanne Rogers, and even the institutions that teach them their trade are reliant on private donors to run their programs — cannot continue if Canada wants a vibrant, thriving fashion industry that doesn’t have to worry about keeping a few potentially problematic people happy to thrive. While there’s an argument to be made for the consumer’s role in supporting local talent, it’s a circular one: After all, how can our fashion designers be expected to compete in the global marketplace (often against fast-fashion’s siren call), when they haven’t been given the resources and space to create internationally-competitive things? It’s not a lack of talent we suffer from — just a lack of investment.
Lockdowns or not, we’re determined to incorporate some sort of fun, summertime vibes into summer 2021. While things may certainly change in the next couple of months, for now that may mean turning to bright splashes of colour on our fingertips, freshly exfoliated skin and beachy scents. If you’re in the same boat, we’ve compiled a list of the best summer launches that are sure to lift your spirits as the weather warms up.
Below are the May 2021 beauty launches we’re adding to cart. May we suggest you do the same?
Featuring three new products — Papaya and Pomegranate Enzyme Exfoliating Body Cleanser ($49), Peptide Youth Restore Firming Body Serum ($49) and Prebiotic and Probiotic Freshening All-Over Body Deodorant ($35) — skincare brand Boscia‘s first foray into the body care category has arrived in Canada. The dermatologist-tested and hypoallergenic products are suitable for all skin types and are available to shop now — just in time for shorts and t-shirt season.
Blondes looking to combat brass tones at home until we can get back into salons, listen up: Amika’s new Bust Your Brass Intense Repair Mask ($63) is a mega-pigmented mask that brightens, tones, hydrates and strengthens blonde, grey and white hair with vegan and cruelty-free ingredients. The ultra-violet pigments that counteract yellow and brassy tones are a must for eliminating brassiness while working to strengthen and repair damage, prevent future breakage and intensely nourish hair.
Formulated with rye extract and hyaluronic acid, Dior’s new Capture Totale Super Potent Eye Serum ($102) works to diminish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles around the eye, while the massage tool applicator works to de-puff and deflate under-eye bags.
First Aid Beauty KP Smoothing Body Lotion with 10% AHA
First Aid Beauty’s new KP Smoothing Body Lotion with 10 percent AHA ($34), the sister product to the brand’s beloved Bump Eraser Body Scrub, has landed in Canada and its timing couldn’t be better. Launching on Sephora.ca on May 18, the formula contains 10 percent lactic acid to gently but effectively buff away keratosis pilaris bumps (a.k.a. “strawberry skin”) that’s often found on the backs of arms and legs. The lotion also features colloidal oatmeal and ceramides to nourish and hydrate skin.
Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Le Gel
Looking to upgrade your shower gel for spring? Look no further than Chanel Coco Mademoiselle Le Gel ($58), a limited edition shower gel for body and hair that’s enriched with Coco Mademoiselle’s bold scent. “I wanted to highlight the summery side of Coco Mademoiselle, an oriental-fruity wake full of sensuality and whose freshness lasts,” says Olivier Polge, Chanel’s in-house perfumer, in a statement.
We may not be heading on summer vacation this year, but thanks to Essie‘s summer collection, we can rely on bright punches of colour to transport us to a sunnier place. The collection features six eye-catching shades ($11 each) with names like “Check Your Baggage,” “Off Tropic” and “Tangerine Tease.” Bring on the summertime vibes.
The latest launch from beloved fragrance house Maison Francis Kurkdjian, the Cologne Forte Collection, features three scents — Aqua Universalis, Aqua Vitae and Aqua Celesti ($290 each) — each of which has bergamot essence from Italy at its core, to instantly transport you to the sunny beaches of Calabria. Whether you choose a musky, floral or fruity citrus, you can be sure that you’ll be reaching for these scents all summer long.
Brüush Electric Toothbrush in Grey Mist, Mauve Cloud and Green Dream
Electric toothbrush brand Brüush has introduced three new surrealism-inspired shades ($99 each) that are sure to elevate your bathroom counter game, thanks to their subtle, dreamy pops of colour. The chic new brushes feature the same six cleaning modes and four-week battery life as the original brushes.
If you looked at the news today, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d had your breakfast with a side of time warp, specifically straight to the year 2003. Ugg boots are being worn outside again, pubic-bone skimming jeans are back, bootcut legs and all — and Bennifer is back, with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are back in the news, spotted together in Montana of all places.
But it’s the year of our lord 2021, and your eyes do not deceive you: Bennifer is back, although it’s not entirely clear whether the portmanteau is back together in a romantic vs. platonic way. (And if the former: What are you thinking, JLo?!) To understand how we/they got here, staring once again at grainy paparazzi shots 17 years after they broke up, it’s worth refreshing our collective memory with a complete history of this notorious celebrity couple.
Late 2001: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez *maybe* get together on the set of Gigli
If you wanted to make a real topical burn back in the early 2000s, you could do no better than compare something negatively to Gigli, widely agreed to be one of the more excruciating pieces of cinema ever created. The film — a rom-com about mobsters, basically — was notorious even whilst filming, mainly because it was upon this cursed set that Ben and Jen met. (Fun trivia: Halle Berry passed on Jen’s part! How different might history be if she hadn’t?!)
At the time, Jen was still with her second husband, dancer Cris Judd, and she’s always maintained nothing happened between her and Ben until she’d officially filed for divorce in July 2002. “We became friends first, that’s the honest to God truth,” Jen told NBC in a 2003 interview, back when celebs broke big news on television, rather than screen grabs of their Notes app on Instagram. “It felt like we had good chemistry.” Ben piped up, adding, “It felt like the scenes were working, it was good,” which should have been our first sign that this relationship was doomed.
November 5, 2002: JLo drops the “Jenny From The Block” video, starring Ben
This video — which features Jen and Ben writhing together onboard a yacht — is clearly autobiographical, telling the tale of an embattled celebrity couple who can’t seem to catch a break from the paparazzi’s hounding. While the couple had yet to go public together (and would only make their red carpet debut the following month, at the Maid In Manhattan premiere), it was a pretty obvious admission of their togetherness — and the scene where they visit a jewellery store a foreshadowing of a major rock-related announcement to come. (In 2008, Ben said his “one regret” about the relationship was doing that music video, nodding to the fact that it ushered in a rough period in his career. Remember Jersey Girl? Me neither.)
November 2002: Ben and Jen announce their engagement!
It was the six-carat pink diamond heard around the world: After less than a year together, the couple announced their engagement, via a Diane Sawyer interview. The proposal, Jen said, “was traditional, but in a spectacular way…very, very beautiful.” Even then, it was obvious to everyone what a strange pairing this was (she, an icon who’d go on to kill the Superbowl at 50, he, a man whose future held a full-back phoenix tattoo), something Jen addressed in the interview: “The two of us together is like, ‘How did that happen?’” A question we’re still asking nearly 20 years later.
September 2003: Ben and Jen “postpone” their wedding days before it was supposed to happen
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez at the ‘Gigli’ premiere in California. Photography by Getty Images.
Things had looked a bit awks at the Gigli premiere in July, but that didn’t stop us all from being *shocked* when their nuptials were called off mere days before their bash was due to take place in Santa Monica. In a joint statement, they blamed “excessive media attention” for the postponement, detailing conversations they’d had around “hiring three decoy brides” to throw the paps off the scent, which is when they realized “something was awry.” The slight logical gap — why they couldn’t still have gotten married without all the pomp and body-doubles elsewhere — isn’t addressed.
January 2004: Bennifer officially calls it quits
Jen’s rep confirmed that she had “called off her engagement,” which is an interesting spin on the widely-circulated reports at the time that it was Ben who ended things because he couldn’t deal with all the Bennifer attention. Using the media insanity around their wedding was his easy way out of things, a “friend” told People around the time. “He got out of the trap and he wasn’t going to get back in. He was looking for a graceful way to let it die.” Jen, speaking in 2008, has a more nuanced take. “We just happened to be together at the birth of the tabloids, and it was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It was just a lot of pressure… I think different time different thing, who knows what could’ve happened, but there was a genuine love there.”
February 2020: Ben says a nice thing about Jen
Fast forward almost two decades, and the first signs that a “different time” might at last be on its way for the ex-loves. “She should have been nominated,” Ben said of Jen’s performance in Hustlers, sparking all kinds of talk of a reconciliation. “I keep in touch periodically with her and have a lot of respect for her. How awesome is it that she had her biggest hit movie at 50? That’s fucking baller,” Affleck told the New York Times. (Interestingly, around this time Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, another early aughts power couple, were spotted looking friendly, which really makes us wonder if there wasn’t a “How to get your aging Hollywood client positive coverage” powerpoint doing the rounds of the publicists’ offices.) At the time, however, we were all distracted by Ben’s romance with Ana de Armas, and what seemed like a rock-solid thing going on between JLo and ARod, who were engaged.
February 2021: Ben reportedly starts emailing love letters to Jen
Per TMZ, Ben Affleck (lonely_boi_99@hotmail.com, we assume?) saw pictures of Jen filming a movie in the Dominican Republic and decided to reach out via email to say how good she was looking, and how much he wished he could be there with her. (How he fit this all in between his apparent constant browsing of celeb dating app Raya, we’re not sure.) The emails apparently pinged back and forth between the two until Jen’s shoot wrapped in April.
April 29, 2021: Bennifer are spotted hanging out together in Los Angeles after her ARod breakup
Jen lands in L.A. and the Internet is promptly set alight by a series of pap shots that show the former couple cruising around the city together. Most outlets reported that the hang was purely friendly, although the timing (just after Jen ended things with ARod) gets the rumour mill grinding.
May 2021: Ben takes Jen to Montana
Once again, they’re driving around in cars together, this time in the glorious scenery of Montana, a place where Ben has been known to take his kids (and ex-wife Jen Garner) for vacations. According to People, they’re now more than just friendly exes going skiing together. “It’s all been very quick and intense, but Jen is happy,” their source claims. “They have a strong connection.” Stay tuned? This timeline is nowhere near done.
