Fashion & Shopping

When Fendi Conquered the Great Wall of China

By 2 days ago

Few people knew at the time — not even Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi — but Fendi did not officially have permission to stage its fashion show on the Great Wall of China back in 2007.

“There is no procedure to do a show on the Great Wall. There is no single entity that controls the wall. We had to deal with 47 different entities and not a single one of them could approve anyone else’s,” Michael Burke, the-then chief executive officer at the Roman fashion house, revealed in an interview. “And you’d never get approvals. All you’d ever get is non-rejections.”

Thankfully, there were non-rejections right up to the moment when the models — 44 of them Chinese, 44 of Western origins — planted their heels on that 2,000-year-old stone wonder, creating some of the most astonishing runway footage of all time.

The audacious spectacle, which luxury titan

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Why Grandmas are the new fashion models in 2020

By 4 days ago
Jean Simms, grandmother of designer Matthew Harding, models a shirt and skirt by her grandson's label Palmer//Harding - Brendan Freeman
Jean Simms, grandmother of designer Matthew Harding, models a shirt and skirt by her grandson’s label Palmer//Harding – Brendan Freeman

This year has presented designers with challenges the likes of which they’ve never faced before. It’s also been a year when many of us have grown closer to our families, locking down together or speaking more than ever as the world slowed down and the news became scarier. 

The result? Grandmas – and mothers, sisters, daughters, nieces, cousins and friends – are turning models for many of the designers presenting new collections, giving a personal, heartfelt feel to offerings which have been created at a time like no other.

Palmer// Harding, the label which specialises in modern shirting founded by Matthew Harding and Levi Palmer, brought the trend to London Fashion Week. In their digital presentation, the designers chose to photograph the women closest to them wearing pieces from

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Abel Ferrara’s Messy Video Diary of a Messy Year

By 6 days ago

There is no writing credit for “Sportin’ Life,” which feels like an omission, but an apt one. On the one hand, this documentary self-portrait by rogue auteur Abel Ferrara feels wholly the product of his eccentric imagination, colored by his voice from beginning to hasty end. On the other, it’s impossible to imagine such a chaotic, clashing assemblage of half-thoughts and impulses being “written” per se: A video diary of the filmmaker’s travels and stasis from February to August of this year, edited with nary a moment to reflect ahead of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival this month, it gives every appearance of having been downloaded directly from his brain in its full antic, distracted form. Whose 2020 has been a year of tidy ideas, after all?

On the one hand, then, “Sportin’ Life” mostly captures the spirit of an enervating, dislocated time, as Ferrara touches on the

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London Fashion Week Ones to Watch

By 1 week ago

LONDON — London Fashion Week kicks off today with a hybrid format. A batch of new talents from around the world has also joined the fashion week, despite challenges posed by the pandemic, to present their latest creations in London. Here, WWD highlights three emerging designers to watch for this season.

Susan Fang

A finalist for the LVMH Prize, Susan Fang’s beaded marble bags are one of the hottest accessories at the moment. Based between London and Shanghai, the brand has built up good momentum in China, and this season, she is joining London Fashion Week’s official calendar for the first time to present her colorful and airy spring 2021 collection with a short filmed in Shanghai, just a few days ahead of London Fashion Week.

Fang said she wanted to bring hope and the feeling of rebirth with her collection, as the pandemic has totally changed the way

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