Tuesday, July 13, 2021

How Three Music Industry Insiders Are Embracing the Post-Lockdown Summer

Calling all Canadian music aficionados — today Apple launched their new Behind the Mac campaign, and it’s a love letter to the Canadian music industry. Through a series of found photos and videos, the commercial features raw and intimate moments of 16 Canadian creatives driving global music culture today. After many celebrities came under fire during the pandemic for projecting their privilege during a time of such stress, it’s refreshing to see widely recognized stars like Justin Bieber and Shawn Mendes in a more relaxed environment.

With this in mind, FASHION enlisted three of Canada’s biggest musical exports — singer-songwriter Charlotte Cardin, hip-hop artist Haviah Mighty and music producer High Klassified — to share how their creativity weathered the pandemic and how months of lockdown affected their personal styles.

Charlotte Cardin, singer-songwriter

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What sparked your transition from a model to singer-songwriter?

“Music has always been a big part of my life ever since I was a kid. I modelled from 15 to 20 until I was making enough money with music to be able to live. But [modelling] was never a big ambition of mine. It was a means to an end: It allowed me to have the financial freedom to buy instruments and work on my music at the same time. Music was always there, and that was my goal.”

How did the pandemic change your creative process?

“The pandemic was actually beneficial to me because I had to learn tons of new things that I had never really been confronted with before. I always worked with a small team, but once the pandemic hit, I obviously couldn’t show up at the studio anymore. So I basically learned how to do my own demos at home this year, and that was a revelation for me. It’s something that’s made me feel super empowered and autonomous in my career because I used to write my songs and record them just on my phone. To be able to start using [Mac software] Logic Pro and make demos where I could add harmonies, add a little beat, add this and that, it just made me feel like, ‘okay, I can do this!'”

How has your personal style evolved throughout the pandemic, and how might it change as we emerge from lockdown?

“I was talking about this with my friends. I was like, ‘oh, I can’t wait for the pandemic to be over; I’m just going to wear all my cute outfits.’ And then fast forward to the pandemic being pretty much over, and I’m still in sweatpants. Loose jeans and sweatshirts or straight up sweatsuits have been my vibe for the last two years. It’s the easiest kind of outfit to wear from one thing to another and not have to worry about comfort.”

What’s your go-to summer beauty item?

“There are two things: The first is the Ultra Fluid Facial Sunscreen by La Roche Posay. It’s really good because it doesn’t mess up your makeup, and it’s not oily. So that’s one thing that I wear every day. The other thing is Chanel’s Les Beiges Highlighting Fluid. It gives this really nice, almost pearly glow, and it’s not a foundation, it’s just you. I usually mix it with my sunscreen and then apply it.”

Haviah Mighty, hip-hop artist

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Congratulations on your collaboration with (Gossip Girl actress) Jordan Alexander on the cover of “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” for Holt Renfrew’s Spring 2021 campaign! Tell me about your experience working with her.

“Jordan is great! She reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in working on the back end and composing the track, with her as the vocalist. It was definitely a big task for me and I actually had to invest in a little bit more gear to do the job. But working with her, it was cool to just be [behind the scenes] and see the other parts of how a song comes together. And in the end, people really liked it. I felt like I produced a genre that I don’t make myself — it’s more indie rock, and I’m a rapper — which is super cool.”

How did the pandemic change your creative process?

“Everything slowing down was a blessing and a curse. Initially, it was a lot. I had a lot of cool show opportunities that fell away, and that was devastating. But I think [the pandemic] made me more resourceful as an artist. It made me maximize my workspaces and have the time to take a deep breath and just be inspired by everybody else doing cool things on social media. But introspection was huge throughout this time; thinking about my perception of self and who I am outside of the musician. How do I streamline and connect with these devices as a musician, but also as a person? It’s been a really interesting time to try to understand how to balance all of this.”

How has your style evolved throughout the pandemic, and how might it change as we emerge from lockdown?

“During the lockdown, the fashion situation was definitely one of comfort, but I still had to film music videos. And the music videos pushed me to focus on understanding what my visual aesthetic is. Because when it comes to styling for a video, how do I represent my entire being in this three-minute thing through clothing? The pandemic has allowed me to understand better how I like to play around with streetwear. I like the showboat-y pieces that go with your Apple Watch and your AirPods, and the whole new age, modern vibe.”

What’s your go-to summer beauty item?

“I recently tried Fenty Skin’s Hydra Vizor Invisible Moisturizer, and it was really soft. I felt like my face was smooth for a few days after that one time of using it.”

High Klassified, music producer

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How have you balanced your music career while also having your own clothing line?

“Since the pandemic, I’ve become even more focused on fashion. It’s actually become a source of inspiration for my music. To me, fashion is art — when I’m creating a song, I often picture a model walking to it on the catwalk. My clothing line Laval Ou Rien was made in collaboration with OTH Boutique, but it’s been a year since I decided to do it on my own with the help of a friend. So now I’m really engaged in the overall process, and I’ve been learning many new things. I see it as another way to express myself, as I do with music. Our next collection is due in fall 2021.”

How did the pandemic change your creative process?

“The pandemic allowed me to become more productive; I was able to spend even more time refining my music. During the lockdown, I found different sources of inspiration. I started taking piano lessons online, which lead me to listen to new songs and create music differently. I also started taking my work outdoors. I’ve always had a home studio, but I started grabbing my MacBook and working from my gazebo. It was the perfect spot to be while the world was stuck at home and gave me new sources of inspiration. Even as the world opens up, I realize now I can create from anywhere.”

How has your style evolved throughout the pandemic, and how might it change as we emerge from lockdown?

“Although we weren’t able to go out, I started posting more outfit pics on my social media accounts, which became another avenue to interact with my community and share my love of fashion and style. With more time at home, I had time to explore my style and experiment — mixing and matching prints and taking more risks with colours and shapes. I used to only wear black, but now I gravitate toward more colour.”

What’s your go-to summer beauty item?

“My go-to summer beauty item is Beauty by Earth – Coffee Bean Eye Cream that I put under my eyes when I wake up; it compensates for my lack of sleep due to my sometimes hectic schedule!”

The post How Three Music Industry Insiders Are Embracing the Post-Lockdown Summer appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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Welcome to FASHION with Flare

We are thrilled to be marking Canadian media history by welcoming Flare readers to FASHION Magazine. These two great Canadian media brands — which were once fierce rivals — have come together to bring you all things fashion and beauty plus the hot takes on all the big topics that matter.

This change is part of the evolution that both brands have experienced over many decades. Flare began as Miss Chatelaine in 1964 as a spin-off of Chatelaine and targeted teenage girls with high school-friendly fashion and dating and etiquette tips. But with the growing feminism movement, content began to shift to career advice and photo shoots showed more office apparel and eventually, a magazine with the word “Miss” in the title didn’t fit with the times. And so Flare was born in 1979 with a strong Canadian point of view on fashion, beauty, culture and relationships.

A few years earlier, city magazine Toronto Life began publishing fashion supplements and in 1977, Toronto Life Fashion was popular enough to become its own magazine. Through the ’80s and ’90s the magazine expanded distribution across the country and “Toronto Life” was slowly dropped from the title (literally, the words became smaller and smaller until they vanished).

With two vibrant Canadian fashion magazines on newsstands, a rivalry was inevitable. But four years ago, Flare stopped printing and concentrated on building a strong online audience. A small but clever editorial team focused less on fashion and beauty and more on culture — whether that meant political explainers, relationship issues or recaps of the latest Bachelor drama.

Last year, FASHION also went through a transition — transforming from a traditional women’s magazine to a fashion and beauty brand for all ages, sizes, genders, ethnicities and orientations.

With both brands evolving in different directions, it became clear that they could be perfect partners. You will now find “Flare” on the FASHION navigation bar and that’s where all our culture content will live in a different visual environment to convey the Flare “energy.” The FASHION and Flare newsletters have also been combined. For news about both brands, follow Fashion Magazine on Facebook and @fashioncanada on Instagram and Twitter.

Both these great brands have thrived by keeping pace with the times in their own ways. But they share much in common: curiosity about our country, respect for cultural differences, acceptance of all genders and orientations, and an appreciation of self-expression.

We welcome you on this journey with us.

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Celine’s Phoebe Philo Is Returning to Fashion With Her Own Brand

Celine fans rejoice — former creative director Phoebe Philo is returning to fashion! After a more than three-year hiatus, the designer is launching a clothing and accessories label under her own name. And not only will Philo be the label’s lead designer, but its majority owner. Philo’s new brand will have a minority backing from French luxury group LVMH (who also owns Celine).

“Being in my studio and making once again has been both exciting and incredibly fulfilling,” said Philo in a short statement shared with The Business of Fashion. “I am very much looking forward to being back in touch with my audience and people everywhere. To be independent, to govern and experiment on my own terms is hugely significant to me.”

Although Philo hasn’t revealed when her new label will debut, she did mention more details would be made available in January 2022. With financial support from the most prominent luxury fashion corporation, LVMH must see strong potential for the brand, and it’s no surprise why. Few designers have had a more significant impact on modern-day fashion: Philo turned Celine into a must-have brand during her tenure, introducing a streamlined wardrobe of effortless classics and refined sportswear.

A favourite among the fashion elite, including Sofia Coppola and Kanye West, Philo pioneered the minimalist design aesthetic that ruled the early 2010s and cancelled the overtly sexy looks that defined the previous decade. Philo subverted the male gaze in her collections and empowered the women wearing them. Yes, her new brand of sexy included slip dresses and short leather skirts, but it also included thick wool coats and turtlenecks — showing skin didn’t make the outfit alluring, the woman wearing it did.

Dearly missed by her fans and the fashion industry as a whole, Philo’s return to fashion has long been a topic of interest. Soon after the designer left Celine in late 2017, the Instagram account @oldceline started gaining traction, its content devoured by Philo’s devotees, known as the “Philophiles.” Since she was replaced by Hedi Slimane at Celine, the label has adopted a very different aesthetic. After a rocky debut of almost exclusively black party dresses, Slimane’s latest inspiration has been the brand’s bourgeois aesthetic of the ’70s. As Celine has ventured into new design territory, Philophiles have been waiting for a brand that would act as a worthy replacement. While some retailers gambled on other minimalist labels such as The Row and Jil Sander taking Celine’s place, no brand has had quite the same impact on Celine stans.

While it’s easy to wish for a Celine 2.0, Philo is not one to repeat herself. During her five years at Chloé in the early 2000s, her vision became synonymous with “boho chic.” The baby doll dresses, wooden wedges and banana print that stormed the Chloé runways were a far cry from the elevated classics she later presented when she arrived at Celine, but her time at the helm of both fashion houses makes one thing clear: Philo knows how to deliver for the present moment.

As fashion continues to speculate about the future of dressing post-COVID, Philo’s new brand is sure to be a key player in the conversation, potentially bridging the gap between the party dressing of the Fall 2021 runways (see: Paco Rabanne, Givenchy and Prada) and the loungewear of the pandemic. While we anxiously await the launch of the new Phoebe Philo brand, here’s a look back at some of the designer’s best fashion moments at Celine.

RTW Spring/Summer 2010. Photography by Getty Images.

Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Fall/Winter 2011. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Spring/Summer 2011. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Fall/Winter 2013. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Fall/Winter 2014. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Fall/Winter 2013. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Spring/Summer 2018. Photography by Getty Images.

Spring/Summer 2018. Photography by Getty Images.

RTW Spring/Summer 2018. Photography by Getty Images.

1/10

The Wide Leg Trouser

2/10

The Box Bag

3/10

The Coat

4/10

The Pyjama Shirt

5/10

The Off-the-Shoulder

6/10

The Sandal

7/10

The Cape

8/10

The Midi Skirt

9/10

The White Sneaker

10/10

The Monochrome Look

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Monday, July 12, 2021

Everything to Know About Pyer Moss’s Historic — and Historically-Informed — Debut Couture Collection

Sometimes you’re witnessing history in the making and you don’t even know it. Say, when you’re watching the unexpected pairing of players or teams at a high-stakes sporting event (there were a few notable ones this past weekend, right?). But other times, like with the case of the Pyer Moss haute couture debut on July 10, the sense of a momentous occasion transpiring before your eyes is just the beginning of the magical narrative that unfolds.

As the first Black American designer to be invited by the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture to present as a guest designer during haute couture week, Pyer Moss’s creative director Kerby Jean-Raymond had the eyes of the world watching his brand’s inaugural couture effort — quite literally, as it was livestreamed. And he shared a tale so rich with history, steeped in protest, and gratuitous in wit and beauty that we’ll be speaking of for decades to come.

Jean-Raymond and his team are no strangers to conceiving of collections and fashion shows that are laden with symbolism and design prowess. In the eight years he’s run Pyer Moss, he has revealed a level of acumen necessary to climb the ranks of the style world’s most covetable positions; in 2020, he was named Reebok’s global creative director and won a CFDA award for American Menswear Designer of the Year. And we were aware of the potential his designs had to be considered couture. The sensational gowns on view at the label’s most recent show in September 2019 were as grand as anything we’ve come to expect from a couture collection’s array. What we didn’t know was how this would manifest in this recent highly anticipated and significant occasion. To say expectations were exceeded is a true understatement for so many reasons.

pyer moss couture — An image of a list of Black inventors shared by Kerby Jean-Raymond via social media. Courtesy of Instagram/@kerbito.

Beyond the typical sense of drama we await during a couture show — one proffered by the sheer decadence and skill behind each laborious and lofty look — the Pyer Moss couture show had an escalated feeling of emotion given the event was initially cancelled due to torrential rain. The elegant runway that was created on the grounds of Villa Lewaro, the New York estate of Madame C.J. Walker — America’s first female self-made millionaire, entrepreneur and nurturer of the Harlem Renaissance — was deluged and slicked, making it a dangerous platform for the show’s models and performers, and an inhospitable arena for presenting what’s considered in fashion circles as the epitome of design and craft.

The crowd, which included Law Roach, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jidenna, Bethann Hardison and A$AP Ferg, stood its soggy ground under umbrellas and ponchos supplied by the label and tucked under tents, with the expectation that a weather-centric miracle would occur and the show would go on. However, at around 4 p.m. on Thursday, July 8, Jean-Raymond appeared on the runway to update the audience. He gave a bit of background on the collection, noting that the idea to create a couture line came after an ayahuasca ceremony, and said that the juncture would be the final false start for the day. A short time later, the affair was cancelled and the subsequent news arrived that it was rescheduled to Saturday. The Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode also stated that haute couture week would be extended to reflect the change. Back at Villa Lewaro, bottles were still popped and blunts — much to the amusement of attendees like New York Times reporter Guy Trebay — were passed. The crowd celebrated in spite of the storm with Saturday’s impending event in sight.

Suffice to say, once attendees including Aurora James took their seats, and activist Elaine Brown took to the re-constructed stage Saturday afternoon, hopes were high and the energy was coursing, even for those of us present via computer and phone screens. When Brown departed the scene, rapper 22GZ and a group of dancers emerged. And then came the looks, each more fanciful, evocative and potent than the last.

Part surrealist fantasy, part political statement and part example of extreme design dexterity, the ensembles were inspired by 25 achievements — overlooked and often omitted from history books — of Black inventors and creatives. For example, look 17 was a sweepingly silhouetted nod to the fire extinguisher patent granted to Thomas J Martin; a red, white and black asymmetrically structured look boasting one of the coming season’s hottest trends, exaggerated sleeves.

There was a chessboard-checkered suit (complete with 3D pieces which will hopefully make it into production, or at least have a hurrah on a red carpet somewhere); a traffic light mini-dress; and hip wader-ish trousers in the shape of ice cream cones topped with an ice cream swirl bustier. The spirit of fashion’s most irreverent and ingenious minds, from Patrick Kelly and Yohji Yamamoto to Franco Moschino, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren was present — a combination of artistry, critique and cheekiness emblematic of what the best cases of design can accomplish: making us feel, interrogate and dream.

Post-show, the press release about it revealed another way in which Jean-Raymond is endeavouring to change the fashion industry. In a rare gesture, the names of the backstage crew, performers and others involved in its production were communicated to media and buyers — a move which illustrates Jean-Raymond’s crucial understanding of giving credit where it’s due. This was the clear ethos of the show in every aspect, whimsical and revolution-focused creativity aside, and the reason why it’s significant. Even in the days following the show, Jean-Raymond has shared more facts about the Black excellence that inspired the pieces, demanding we continue our educations now that the beauteous buzz has waned.

Because what is design without examination of the past? Other couture debuts this week at Maison Alaïa and Balenciaga saw the “updating” of philosophies and aesthetics for houses that have years-long lexicons to derive concepts from. Pyer Moss’s couture debut will be remembered as the launching point of a new direction for a thought leader who has already accomplished so much, and yet is still demonstrating he’s really just getting started.

See the full collection here.