Weather
English
RocksNews

International news in seven languages

Advertisement
Advertisement

Topic

Life and style

Style

Dolce & Gabbana mixes it up as pressure mounts for turnaround

With Jennifer Lopez providing some star power, the Italian house’s Milan show came at a crucial time for the brand Earlier this week Jennifer Lopez walked down the Vogue World catwalk in Milan wearing a black beaded A-line bustier dress from Dolce & Gabbana. On Saturday, she sat in the front row at the Italian house’s womenswear show in a three-piece velvet suit from the same brand, her look topped off with a baker-boy cap. The reminder of Dolce & Gabbana’s inimitable celebrity connection is no coincidence. In a turbulent luxury market, the brand has found itself trying to navigate a n

Travel

How Athens discovered a new, confident Greek cuisine

Athens is now a food capital where you can enjoy bustling bars, traditional taverna fare or unearth a new-wave gem in its many restaurants – but it wasn’t always this way See our recommendations for eating and drinking around Athens Visiting Athens for its food might have sounded like a joke to previous generations. Unlike many other Mediterranean countries, including Italy, Spain and Turkey, Greece had no renaissance and no aristocracy to fund chefs and develop sophisticated cuisines. Simple village dishes didn’t always translate well: in the past, tourists would suffer a summer scorching and

Style

‘It’s luxury that wants to be seen’: aristocrats and eccentrics inspire Demna’s vision for Gucci in Milan

Collection by the designer, brought in to return the ailing fashion house to profit, is on the money He’s the mononymic designer who has been charged with rescuing Gucci from plummeting sales. So where better for Demna to stage his third catwalk show than at the forefront of commerce – a purpose-built Gucci shop. During Milan fashion week on Friday, the designer transformed a convention centre into a sprawling retail space that mirrored the design for the brand’s new boutiques. Continue reading...

Style

From chunky knits to go-anywhere boots: 52 women’s autumn wardrobe updates (some are even free)

Forget a head-to-toe overhaul. Whether it’s swapping loafers for lace-ups or mixing your metals, try these styling tweaks to give your look a fresh seasonal spin • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here You know what I always think looks really chic? When someone is dressed timelessly, but with just one element that brings the outfit bang up to date. A look that is 90% personal style, 10% zeitgeist. That is such a good formula. Being head-to-toe in new trends is not cool these days. It can look a little overeager, and your clothes end up wearing you rather than the other wa

Style

From bling and birds to ‘really fancy armour’ – the best dressed characters of the Bayeux tapestry

Medieval experts talk us through the fashion of the near-1,000-year-old embroidered work, and what it says about the people wearing it Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Blood, booze, arrows and boats; these are what you might typically imagine when you think of the Bayeux tapestry, which has become one of the hottest historical tickets since it went on display at the British Museum in London this month. But what about the hair? “The Anglo-Saxons all have these little moustaches, which are brilliant. And then the Normans have these funny haircuts with the back of

Style

‘Going places with panache’: Max Mara channels audacious women for Milan show

Chore jackets and loose-fit trousers nod to ‘nonconformist glamour’ of Amelia Earhart and other pioneers The Max Mara catwalk at Milan fashion week had well-cut coats, sturdy block-heeled boots, crisp white shirts and capacious suede handbags. What it quite deliberately did not have was shock value. “I hope everyone watching this show can recognise something of themselves in what they see,” said Ian Griffiths, the British designer who has been at this Italian house since 1987. “I think that’s really important. Without being critical of other brands or designers, so much of fashion alienates pe

Advertisement
Style

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: in praise of slightly silly clothes

The push to buy lasting, sustainable clothes is a good thing, but every wardrobe need a bit of mischief I do hope you are wearing your zebra stripe trousers today. Anyone who is anyone is wearing zebra stripes this month, you know. If you haven’t yet got with the programme, I suggest you nip to the shops and snap some up before they are all gone. It would be mortifying to be the last one without a pair. Hurry! Only teasing. Fashion doesn’t work like that any more. The days when people like me bullied everyone else into wearing banana yellow one season and puffball sleeves the next are over. Lo

Style

Sali Hughes on beauty: if you can’t use retinoids, these proven anti-ageing formulas are the next best thing

Stop ‘pushing through the pain’ or ceaselessly searching for the ‘right retinol’ – there are some great alternatives Anyone with an internet connection will no doubt have heard that retinoids – a group of vitamin A-based compounds – are the most evidenced and effective ingredients in treating the visible signs of skin ageing. Message received loud and clear. But what often goes unheard are the voices of many beauty consumers who have found that they simply cannot use them. All too often, I see experts online telling those complaining of discomfort, unremitting dryness, persistent redness, stin

Style

From 50p gold hot pants to Paul Smith suits: how Kylie Minogue became one of pop’s ultimate chameleons

The star’s rise from Ramsay Street to global superstar is the subject of a new book. It’s a journey that has cleverly harnessed the power of fashion to transform, subvert – and shock On 20 December 1989, Kylie Minogue first harnessed the power of fashion. Attending the Australian premiere of her film The Delinquents, she wore a custom sequined noughts-and-crosses minidress by Australian designers Morrissey Edmiston and a cropped blond wig. She also arrived with a new accessory: a rock star boyfriend in the shape of Michael Hutchence from INXS. Before then, there’d been her Neighbours character

Style

Skirts given star billing as Prada swerves trousers and dresses in Milan

Combination of Miuccia Prada with Belgian designer Raf Simons once again spins gold for fashion house Miuccia Prada’s style formula is simple: begin with a great skirt. Her personal uniform is a knee-length skirt, A-line or pleated, most often with a plain sweater and kitten heels. The Prada collection that opened Milan fashion week made a compelling case for her favourite outfit, with a skirt the star of every one of the 63 looks – no dresses, no trousers. It won the room over, so expect to see the personality skirt on a high street near you soon. Continue reading...

Style

Celia Birtwell ‘humanises’ Burberry in London fashion week closing show

Textile designer brings florals, vines and smiley doodles to brand’s luxury checks for one-off paired collection Burberry and Celia Birtwell are both national treasures of sorts. One is Britain’s grandest luxury name, the other the textile designer who dressed bohemian 1960s London in her prints and has a place in art history as David Hockney’s favourite muse. Burberry’s designer, Daniel Lee, has always loved Birtwell’s prints. When the two met this spring, he fell for “her energy, and her zest for life”, and a one-off Burberry meets Birtwell collection that closed London fashion week was born

Style

McQueen comes home to happy, dark place at London fashion week

Brand returns to its physical and unconventional roots as it battles undergoes stark restructuring Back when a young Lee McQueen was showing at London fashion week, there was Dante, the show in a Hawksmoor church with a skeleton in the front row and a blaring soundtrack of organ music and gunfire. And there was Voss, where models were trapped inside a giant mirrored box set up as a psychiatric ward. Twenty-five years later, the Alexander McQueen brand returned from the Paris schedule to a creepily beautiful subterranean 17th century London chapel, with steel harnesses, bulky ankle strapped hee

Style

‘She changed the beauty industry’: how Charlotte Mensah brought black hair into the spotlight

A new exhibition in London celebrates the influential hairstylist whose clients include Janelle Monáe and Zadie Smith. She explains her story – and why she’s on a mission to ensure stylists are trained to work with all hair types When Charlotte Mensah was a young child growing up in Accra, Ghana in the 1970s, she would spend hours watching her aunties having their hair intricately threaded, an ancient African technique where hair is wrapped tightly using yarn or thread. She didn’t know then that she would go on to become one of the most influential hairdressers in the UK. Renowned for champion

Style

Christopher Kane and Mulberry make swaggering joint comeback at London fashion week

Appointment of Kane as creative director signals the return of serious style ambition for former It-bag brand With spicy leather mini-dresses and shoes with miniature axes for heels, two beloved British names made a swaggering joint comeback at London fashion week. Fifteen years ago, Christopher Kane and Mulberry were two of the biggest shows on the line-up. Kane was the brilliant young designer who could find fashion in the most unlikely places: rubberised lace minis were inspired by “Princess Margaret on acid”; while illustrations from the 1972 classic The Joy of Sex appeared on slinky slip

Advertisement
Style

‘I got married in it’: readers on their favourite secondhand fashion finds

To mark Oxfam’s Second Hand September, here are some of your best thrift discoveries and the stories behind them Oxfam’s Second Hand September campaign encourages people to avoid buying new clothes for 30 days and choose preloved pieces instead. From £28 Prada skirts to £5 wedding dresses, we asked people to share their favourite fashion finds and the stories behind them. Continue reading...

Style

Chanel brings beanstalk to catwalk in fairytale Paris couture show

Storytelling collection opens with mousseline skirt suit and ends with simple black dress in spirit of label’s founder The first model on the Chanel catwalk was wearing a sheer mousseline skirt suit and carrying a tiny century-old leatherbound book of fairytales that once belonged to Coco Chanel herself. With the Lord of the Rings soundtrack booming through a stage set of giant parasol-scale poppies and lupins as tall as giraffes, the clothes narrated the stories in the pages. A row of buttons on the spine of a dress began with an ugly duckling, and ended with a swan. A Goldilocks minaudière h

Style

Pierpaolo Piccioli’s couture debut reimagines Balenciaga in his own colourful image

Italian designer brings sculptural silhouettes and playful palettes to storied house, while it is hats off to Giorgio’s niece at her second Armani Privé show The house of Balenciaga takes haute couture very seriously indeed. Cristóbal Balenciaga was so horrified by the rise of mass-produced clothes that in 1968 he abruptly shuttered his brand and retired to his native Spain, announcing that “high fashion is mortally wounded”. So Pierpaolo Piccioli, who now helms the house, approached the brief of his first Balenciaga couture collection conscientiously, despite having 25 years of experience at

Style

‘Work hard – nobody cares how good you used to be’: Paul Smith at 80 on love, fun and his fabulous life in fashion

With the release of his new biography, the British designer talks about leaving school at 15, the real reason he won’t retire and why no one wears velvet trousers any more Go for a browse in the Paul Smith shop in Mayfair, London, on any given Saturday and you’ll likely find an older shop assistant, straight-backed in fine tailoring, approaching to help you with a new shirt, or a suit for a special occasion, perhaps a jaunty pair of socks. There aren’t many global fashion brands, Paul Smith points out, perhaps unnecessarily, “where the owner is a Saturday boy”. But working in his shop, one of