Vibes #25: Fashion Has Gone Delulu
Surrealism takes over luxury, memes make their way off the internet onto our clothes and Zuckerberg tries fashion AI
‘Vibes' is a place to get the lowdown on what the f*ck has been going on in fashion recently. Good, bad, and everything in between — this is where it's at.
‘Vibes’ is a place for you to discover all of the fashionable things that should be on your radar.
If you didn’t know you needed to know these fashion tidbits, well, now you know.
It's a place to discover the news you may have missed and peek behind the scenes to see wtf has been going on in fashion recently.
Let’s get into round #25.
A new year means new trends, new drama, new fashion-fashioning... and the rest of it.
Celebrities can't keep their sticky fingers out of the fashion pie.
Brands are going delulu as memes and surrealism make their way into the mainstream fashion space.
And people at either end of the generational spectrum are having their fashionable time in the spotlight.
I love the craziness, the mess, the fashion tea, all of it.
Here's to hoping 2024 is another jaw-dropping year for the fashion books.
Brand chit chat
S.S. Daley gets a celeb backer: a big announcement came after designer Steven Stokey-Daley’s show at Pitti Uomo at the start of the month. Harry Styles, yep that Harry Styles, ex-One Direction and the "Watermelon Sugar" guy, has taken a minority stake in S.S. Daley. Apparently, Styles has been a fan of the brand ever since stylist Harry Lambert dressed the singer in the label for his “Golden” music video in 2020, so this move feels like a natural fit.
SSENSE is memeifying fashion: it's an IYKYK kind of thing, and SSENSE knows. By speaking the universal language that is a fan favourite for Millennials and Gen Z, the multi-national retailer based out of Montreal, Canada, is using memes to speak a new fashion language. From social posts to huge billboards, the retailer is going all in on everything meme-related. But does it work? And how long can the insider jokes last?
New Balance is in its smell good era: who would have thought, New Balance makes fragrances now and their first scent smells like new shoes – it's a clever concept, and one I don't think anyone saw coming. As GQ very cleverly coined, can you say ‘shoe de toilette’? Anyways, the ‘Distilled’ series will be available in two scents called ‘Original’ and ‘Court' — I'll give you three guesses as to where they got the name inspo.
News you might have missed
Surrealist fashion ain't going nowhere: it's kooky, it's weird, and it's a little out of the box, it’s the season of dreamlike and subversive fashion moments. Fashion is entering its surrealist era and I'm not mad about it. From Loewe lion heads to JW Anderson frog loafers to Squid Game-esque Yayoi Kusama statues taking over Louis Vuitton stores, the surrealism in fashion trend is due to gain steam in 2024 as we come to expect the unexpected.
Bows, bows and more bows: bows are everywhere right now. You name it, and some brand has put a bow on it. Whether that's Sandy Liang, Simone Rocha or Miu Miu, bows are a fashion hit as the coquette trend fuels people's love for bows on Instagram and TikTok. Bow mania is playful, dreamy, a little childlike and a whole lot of weird as people attach bows to things like ice cubes, pickles, water bottles and whatever they can get their hands on.
Fashion loves athletes: the worlds of fashion and sport have collided to become a pretty epic dream team. LV signed tennis star Carlos Alcaraz and dressed footballer Jude Bellingham, while FC Barcelona's Jules Koundé is a bit of a style influencer. Sports stars are sitting FROW, they're starring in brand campaigns and becoming luxury ambassadors, and they're turning sports tunnels and press conferences into their personal fashion shows.
Icon moments and eye-roll behaviour
Louis Vuitton hires a 13-year-old: in November 2023, the mother of a 13-year-old Parisian teen shared sketches of his work on Twitter in the hopes that it would get the attention of the French fashion house. After a journalist caught wind of the story and spread the word to LV headquarters, catching the eye of some big industry players, the teen went on to become the brand's youngest intern ever. There’s levels and then there’s levels.
Hermes billionaire chooses gardener as heir: who would've thought, an heir to one of the biggest fashion dynasties and fortunes around is reportedly leaving his inheritance to his gardener. Yes, you read that right. Nicolas Puech, 80, is reportedly adopting his former gardener, 51, and could be handing over a slice of his $11 billion fortune. It's giving fractured family and Succession vibes IRL — we need a Netflix documentary about this ASAP.
Zuckerberg AI fashion, no thanks: so Mark Zuckerberg got his fashion fix when previewing Meta AI's styling capabilities while using the Quest 3. All I can say is... we don't want this. And we'll never want this. Can you just leave fashion alone Zuck, please and thank you. It's a recipe for swaglessness and the outfits are crap, it's taking the fun and experimental nature out of fashion, and it quite literally looks like a robot is telling you to get dressed.
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