Monday, October 23, 2017

This Jewelry Designer Should Be Your Next Instagram Girl Crush

While there are countless brands devoted to a clean, minimal aesthetic, there’s something special about ARC Objects, the brainchild of designer Daniela Jacobs. A Parsons graduate who splits her time between New York and Mallorca, Jacobs says her work celebrates mindfulness and encourages a greater appreciation for “the beauty in small, transient moments.” From her simple yet bold jewelry to her disc-shaped home objects, the porcelain and metal pieces that Jacobs creates are intentionally seasonless.



Her off-kilter designs allow for a greater appreciation of details that might otherwise be overlooked. As she explains, “My designs encourage the reconsideration of the objects we use and wear—for example, a plate of unusual shape further highlights what’s on it.” And now that Jacobs has a new website, it seems like the perfect time to fully immerse yourself in her carefully composed world.

As a kid, Jacobs took an early interest in making things from scratch, crafting miniature paper houses, clothes, and accessories for her dolls. “I found both making things and then using them endlessly entertaining and inspiring. One idea would give way to another, and now, in life-size versions, it’s still that way for me.”

Jacobs’s experimental style was encouraged from an early age by an exceptional teacher, Lisa Mayock, the designer of Monogram and Vena Cava. Before Jacobs studied at Parsons, she took a pre-college fashion class with Mayock, and the two ended up staying in touch. “Over the years she’s become a great friend and mentor. She’s shown me through example how to embody one’s personal style ‘language,’ to think about style from many angles.”

Mayock has also encouraged Jacobs to embrace the more eccentric parts of her personality. These include her perennially purple lip color: “I’ve come to mix three different lipsticks to arrive at the particular shade of wine that I like.” And then there’s her penchant for shapes that are just the slightest bit wonky (one of her recent releases, the Full Circle Plate Set, at first appears to be perfectly round, but due to the fact that each piece is handmade and no two plates are exactly alike, one can sometimes notice the slightest asymmetrical bent).

It’s precisely Jacobs’s ability to experiment with shapes, colors, and textures that make both her Instagram feed and her products so captivating, despite their apparent simplicity. “There is so much boldness in simplicity—in literal and figurative senses—so much strength in the delicate,” she says.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Rihanna Gives an Emerging Eastern European Label Some Star Power


The popularity of Eastern European fashion doesn't seem to be waning anytime soon. Like Bella Hadid, who has worn the cool leather coats of Georgia's Situationist and the hats of Ukraine's Ruslan Baginskiy, Rihanna has also turned her eye towards an emerging designer from Eastern Europe. Yesterday, at the Fenty Beauty launch at Sephora in Madrid, Spain, Rihanna wore a pretty off-the-shoulder dress from the Spring 2018 collection of Ukrainian designer Marianna Senchina. The piece boasted poet sleeves, a puffed print skirt, and had a bodice that was fastened with bows that left slits of skin—as well as Ri Ri's below-the-breastbone tattoo—cleverly visible. Over the past several seasons, Senchina has become well-known, locally and internationally, for her uber-feminine and flouncy creations. She has also sold on e-commerce sites, including Moda Operandi.

The romantic dress is a refreshing change of pace for the Eastern European fashion industry. During the past seasons, there has been a heavy focus on talents that employ a post-Soviet aesthetic, like Russia's Gosha Rubchinskiy or Georgian-born Demna Gvasalia of Vetements. Senchina is one example of a designer paving the way for a new generation who show that these countries have more to offer than the dark, '90s-era styles that have become synonymous with the region's fashion. Now, let's see who Rihanna chooses to thrust into the spotlight next.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Chloë Sevigny’s Jeans! Anita Pallenberg’s Henley! 8 Vintage Treasures From Stylist Bay Garnett’s Archive Have Been Remade

There was something wildly inventive about West London fashion in the ’90s. The legendary vintage scene at Portobello Road Market, stretching from Golborne Road to Westbourne Grove, gave birth to the seemingly slapdash high-low mix that defines good street style to this day. Now, Bay Garnett, the British stylist who helped pioneer the secondhand movement, has partnered with M.i.h. Jeans to harness that magic for a new capsule collection that goes one step further than simple vintage-inspired designs. Instead, Golborne Road by Bay Garnett is a curated selection of thrifted treasures, plucked directly from her personal archive and reproduced for the masses.


These eight perfect pieces represent the crown jewels of Garnett’s expansive vintage collection, lovingly assembled on rambles through Portobello. “It was our way of life,” Garnett recalls of thrifting back then. “It was a really genuine, lovely passion that unified us.” From her home base in Shepherd’s Bush, she would set off for model Iris Palmer’s ramshackle house on the road and from there, the ragtag crew would embark on the hunt for rare, affordable finds—a soft cotton tee covered in glitter stilettos, or the elusive pair of perfect jeans. Many of those items found their way into Garnett’s editorial work—shoots for British Vogue, the pages of her cult thrifter’s zine Cheap Date—and sparked a collective desire for a more effortless, fun-loving wardrobe. “It could be dark red tracksuit bottoms with high heels and a swimsuit—almost quite Gummo, that film with Chloë Sevigny—or it could be a beautiful vintage silk dress,” Garnett says. “It didn’t matter what, it was about your own sense of style.”

That ethos feels particularly of the moment—one reason why M.i.h. founder Chloe Lonsdale, who also lived off Golborne Road in the mid-’90s, tapped Garnett for this collaboration. “I loved how people would pull out a ’30s silk tea dress, wear it over secondhand jeans and a pair of sneakers or Dr. Martens, and add a little twist of their own—jewelry, a hat,” she says. “Bay immortalized that look—what we see now as street style was single-handedly put on the map by her. It was that attitude toward dressing that I fell in love with.”

Happily, that attitude can be snapped up with one of Garnett’s vintage reproductions. Some are exact replicas (the black chinoiserie blouse with snaking buds up the collar), while others have been updated just slightly (a fleece turtleneck with elaborate ruffled sleeves, remade in soft jersey). Each has its own special history, laid out by Garnett, below—think a velour henley the color of mink, a gift from Anita Pallenberg, or those perfect flares, worn by countless It girls like Sevigny. They may be the holy grail of secondhand shopping, the sort of perfect high-waisted denim you can’t ever find new—at least, until now.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Jennifer Aniston Ventures Outside of Her Fashion Comfort Zone—And Scores

Wearing an all-over abstract print presents its fair share of challenges, perhaps most of all finding a flattering fit. Fortunately, Jenner Aniston has the issue covered. The actress wore a black dress dotted in a subtle brush stroke motif while attending today's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony for actor and The Switch costar Jason Bateman.



Aniston is a known minimalist, often favoring neutral color palettes and wardrobe staples when off-duty. The print was a marked departure form her monochrome tendencies, though the visual element transformed what would have otherwise been just another little black dress. An accompanying belt at the waist lent the shift a sense of shape, while the asymmetric hem added movement. Her shoes were also a stylistic step forward: She recently stepped out in nude suede sandals while visiting New York, but the pink metallic pair seen here was more playful while still reading like a neutral, to similar leg-lengthening effect. She kept things classic with the rest of her accessories, like a quilted shoulder bag with a chain-link strap that coordinated with her usual touches of barely-there gold jewelry in the same finish.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Victoria Beckham Is Summer's Most Stylish Rebel

It looks like Victoria Beckham is switching things up, yet again. At the start of the month, the designer put a citrus-colored twist on her uniform and her posh stamp on suits and pajama dressing. Tonight at Christie’s in London, where she arrived to toast her son Brooklyn’s book debut, Beckham debuted a sleek alternative to her usual punchy palette that retained her cool approach to tailoring.


Beckham’s midnight blue and black combo was a total knockout from top to bottom. Her double-breasted, peak lapel blazer was the ideal foil for her foulard-inspired top, as the piece helped maintain the look’s structure. Equally fluid trousers amped up the louche ’70s vibes, while a discreet ladybag sans chain gave the outfit a clean finish.