Cardi B Takes Peacocking to New Extremes at Paris Fashion Week

Cardi B’s not exactly known for her subtle sense of style (or personality, for that matter). Just take the outfits that she’s worn in the past week alone: She’s gone all out channeling Fran Drescher in clashing animal prints (and furry glasses!) at Dolce & Gabbana in Milan, and just days later in Paris she stepped out in a Michael Costello gown and matching over-the-top hat, both of which were printed with peacock feathers. The joke here doesn’t seem to be lost on Cardi; she captioned her Instagram post with the proclamation: “I’m Mrs. OMG that bitch is shameless.”

If Cardi was riffing on the concept of peacocking before, she’s now taken it to new extremes. Cardi performed at the French lingerie brand Etam’s runway show yesterday in a lavender Christian Cowan suit that had massive purple feathers running diagonally down the jacket’s side. Cardi seems to be taking what some might hurl as an insult and defiantly making it the centerpiece of her outfit. Even though they were technically ostrich feathers, the look was still one of Cardi’s loudest statements yet—that is, until she steps out in something even more over-the-top tomorrow.

Up Your Sustainable Style Game the Scandi Way in Envelope1976, the New Brand by Influencer Celine Aagaard

Rumor has it that during the shows in Stockholm next week, we’ll be seeing more street style stars in Envelope1976, a new, super-chic and sustainable brand that made a sort of stealth debut during Oslo Fashion Week. The line, which arrives in stores in October, is designed by Celine Aagaard. Best known as an influencer, the lithe 41-year-old Norwegian has been working in fashion and media for 20 years. (Her life as a social media sensation actually began when she was stopped in the street in Paris while on assignment to interview Justin Timberlake.) Now, with help from her partners at Eco.Logic, the photojournalist, editor, author, stylist, consultant, and agency owner is adding designer to her résumé.

There’s no doubt that Aagaard, who hand-knit clothes for her dolls and broke her mother’s needles customizing her ’90s denim, has a well-educated eye. Nature, travel, art, and family photos inspire her as much as fashion does. She grew up enchanted by her father’s stories of going to Studio 54 with Andy Warhol and meeting Salvador Dalí. The latter remains an unexpected but constant source of inspiration to Aagaard, who is partial to a tomboy twist. This is but one element of her personal wardrobe that has carried over to Envelope1976, in the form of loose-fitting, tailored “grandpa” jackets.

Aagaard is a fan of what Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen do at The Row. Envelope1976 has a minimal, high-end aesthetic, though it is by design rather attainable: Dresses are priced around $400, the better to share the message of sustainability. “We really wanted to do something that can help change the industry when it comes to the whole production part,” says Pia Nordskaug, cofounder of the brand, who has traveled around the globe with Aagaard to find suppliers and producers who meet their standards for quality. The line’s draped and reversible dresses, comfy sweaters, and tailored pieces are made of materials like natural cupro and recycled alpaca wool and are designed so that they can be worn and styled in different ways. The vegan dyeing process has determined the natural palette.

Nature, of course, informs the Norwegian dress sense, almost as much as aesthetics—it gets really cold up north. “During the fall and winter, we are wrapped like burritos in oversize wool sweaters, big scarves, coats, and boots,” jokes Aagaard, who has thought about how the pieces in her collection can be layered. She slipped a soft sweater over an ivory button-front dress in the showroom. Inclusivity is also built into the clothes; a variety of fit models (including relatives) are used to insure the pieces fit women of different body shapes and sizes.

There’s no one way to wear Envelope1976, and that’s the point; the brand’s name is an invitation, to express yourself through mindful, responsible fashion.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again Is the Only Good Thing This Summer Has Given Us

It’s been a rough summer. The things that we usually look forward to the most about the hottest months have a slightly sickly, dystopian sheen, like something isn’t quite right about this place (Earth) anymore. America’s brightest young things are getting engaged left and right, but are they okay? Drake delivered his perennial album’s worth of sweating-in-the-club-ready R&B bops, except this year they discuss his secret love child with an adult film actress he claims to have only met a handful of times. Announcers at the World Cup were racist; a guy on The Bachelorette was racist. Bikinis all have sleeves now. What gives, America?

This is why you must, must go see Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again this weekend. I simply urge you to jump into its cool cerulean waters and indulge in this slightly sloppily prepared, refreshing cinematic Greek salad of equal parts song and dance and irrepressible cheese. It’s the only pure good thing out there right now that knows exactly what the world outside is: filth, so why resemble anything like it?

I could sell you on the cast alone, probably. Mamma Mia’s reprise sees a full return from the cast of the original musical turned movie, including Amanda Seyfried, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Dominic Cooper, and Meryl Streep, as a ghost (this isn’t a spoiler—it’s not my fault if you haven’t been paying attention to the MM2 discourse). This time, we have the addition of Lily James, who plays a young Donna in a series of flashbacks that serve as backstory. We learn just how she got herself into the original film’s conundrum, in which her daughter, Sophie, had three possible fathers, and it’s a pretty simple explanation: She had a bunch of one-to-a-few-nights stands, sans diaphragm. Back in the present, Sophie is carrying on her mother’s legacy (again, Streep’s character is dead) by reopening the hotel she first crashed in on her Greek island home as a young pregnant unwed mother—here is where I assert that Mamma Mia is also feminist for this reason. Andy Garcia is the penultimate casting addition, all but extending his role as hot older distinguished gentleman in this summer’s only other good thing, Book Club, to play hot older distinguished hispanic gentleman. There are a few deeper cuts of the ABBA catalog to keep the songs fresh, but all the hits, of course, make their way back.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again’s fantasy world of bright seaside colors against those quintessential white clay Greek hillside homes, its Anthropologie-inspired interpretation of ’70s clothing, its inconsistent attempts at historical accuracy (none of the suitcases have wheels but the microphones are cordless), its bald-faced shoehorning of ABBA’s confectionary hits into caftan-thin plotlines—the whole experience caresses like a warm breeze, spiked by one meaningless thunderstorm and a few incredible one-liners delivered by Donna’s friend Tanya (the honorable Baranski in the present, Jessica Keenan Wynn in the past). Back in the ’70s, Donna meets her suitors and goes home with them unafraid of the decade’s abundant serial killers; in 2018, a nod to a bunch of listless Greek fishermen sitting around with no money or jobs, which you might call its shoutout to the global recession, is solved by—what else—a bunch of ABBA songs. Everyone has the exact same hairstyle and distinctive personality traits over the span of several decades. At one point, the characters literally find a pearl in an oyster, that’s how good the citizens of Mamma Mia have it. Is it possible to change your country of origin to a movie sequel?

I can’t tell you about the ending of Mamma Mia 2 without actually spoiling it, but I can tell you that we finally do see Cher, as Sophie’s grandma/Donna’s mom, and that she is decked out in silver with platinum hair like a tall chrome Dolly Parton, and that she sings, her beautiful moonlit face wholly unmoving except for her mouth. And that there is a subsequent scene that brought me to tears even as I thought to myself, This is so incredibly absurd. And that the film’s curtain call is one of the finest showstopping musical numbers and general feel-good fan pandering since goddamn Grease. If I sound passionate, it’s because I’m not used to feeling anything anymore. I await Mamma Mias 3 through 10.

Victoria Beckham Has a Dressy Date Night with Brooklyn

Victoria Beckham has been out and about with her boys lately. In London on Monday night, Beckham hosted an intimate fête alongside her husband David to celebrate her curation of Sotheby’s upcoming Old Masters sale, and she then crossed the Channel to take in Kim Jones’s debut effort for Dior Homme with son Brooklyn.

Tonight, Beckham again stepped out with her eldest son to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Beckham selected a streamlined frock from her spring collection which featured a plunging neckline and nary an embellishment. The sheer back alluded to skin while retaining a hint of modesty, while the slit down the spine was a natty touch.

Minimal jewelry—Beckham’s OTT engagement sparkler being an exception—provided subtle shine for the finishing touch.

Brooklyn, meanwhile, took a cue from his dapper dad David and gussied up in a complementary navy suit. The combination with his mother’s look made for a fashion knockout—and we’d expect nothing less from the Beckham brood.

Joshua Henry on Starring in the Broadway Revival of Carousel

There are many reasons why Jack O’Brien’s revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s dark 1945 musical Carousel, now in previews at the Imperial Theatre, should be at the top of your theatergoing list—from the beguiling score, which features such classics as “If I Loved You” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” sung here by the likes of Jessie Mueller (Beautiful; Waitress) and Renée Fleming, to the choreography, by New York City Ballet wunderkind Justin Peck. But for me, the main reason to ride this Carousel is Joshua Henry as the magnetic but good-for-nothing ruffian Billy Bigelow. After Tony-nominated performances in The Scottsboro Boys and Violet, among others, the ridiculously handsome, charismatic, and golden-voiced Henry, who acts as beautifully as he sings, is poised to take his place as a Broadway leading man for a new generation. “This is one of the great musical-theater roles—a man who has a poetic soul but is extremely limited and takes some very wrong turns,” Henry says. “And I get to sing some of the most gorgeous music you’ll ever hear. It’s pretty much a dream.”

Set on the coast of Maine in the late nineteenth century, Carousel tells the story of a young mill worker named Julie Jordan (Mueller), who falls for and marries the brash carousel barker Billy (Henry), who physically abuses her and is about to leave her when he learns that she’s pregnant, leading to his involvement in a botched robbery, his violent death, and his ultimate salvation in the afterlife. The son of Jamaican immigrants, he grew up in Miami and planned on being an accountant when he grew up (it didn’t pan out), Henry comes to the role fresh from the national tour of Hamilton, in which he played Aaron Burr, another flawed man undone by poor life choices. “I’m attracted to playing complex human beings like Billy,” he says. “He’s the hero and the villain of the story.” Many of the musicals in which Henry has starred, from Scottsboro Boys and Shuffle Along to Hamilton, have contended with the barbed issue of race in our country’s history. But don’t expect a revisionist Carousel. “When I asked Scott Rudin why he wanted to cast me, he said, ‘Because I think you’re the best actor to play this role’—which was very flattering,” Henry recalls. “At the same time, I’m a black man, and I’m going to bring who I am to the part, and that’s going to add nuances of meaning to certain moments.”

As someone who grew up in a deeply religious household and discovered his gift for performing by singing and playing guitar in church, Henry says that he is drawn to the show’s theme of redemption. “I’m moved by the idea of ‘Can we do something terrible and get a second chance?’ ” he says. Playing a man whose life is changed when he discovers that he’s about to be a father has a particular resonance for Henry at this moment: He and his wife, Cathryn, are expecting their first child this month. It has given, Henry says, new meaning to the lyrics of “Soliloquy,” the almost operatic act-one finale, in which Billy grapples with the emotions of what it will be like to raise a son or daughter. “In that first line, he asks, ‘I wonder what he’ll think of me’ and then he goes on to wonder what he’ll be like, and that’s exactly what I’m thinking right now, like, Who is this guy going to be?” Henry says. “I’m getting to be a leading man, playing this iconic role, and at the same time preparing to take on the most important role of my life. From my own spiritual perspective, the whole thing almost feels orchestrated.”