Terry Takes Montauk: Bethany Mayer Road-Tests the Fuzzy Fabric's Return

Summertime and terrycloth went hand in hand for many carefree children growing up in the eighties—Surf Bazaar’s Bethany Mayer included—but now that designers have playfully cut and covered clothing and accessories in the flocculent fabric for spring (take Chloé’s striped retro-feel dress, Charlotte Olympia’s sugar pink wedges, or Lisa Marie Fernandez’s knotted bikinis for instance), there’s no need to resign it to photo album memories. But should it be resurrected beyond a beach towel, or is it better left buried under three decades of sartorial history?

“There’s an Esther Williams feel to it,” says Mayer thoughtfully considering the Lisa Marie Fernandez bikini she took for a dip in Montauk. (Mayer lived in pastel-hued jumpsuits handmade from the bouncy material by her mother from ages five to eight). “But it also felt modern. People wanted to get closer to see what I was wearing; it garnered quite a bit of interest!” But rather than pile on top-to-toe terry, Mayer’s approach was to mix and match. “Wearing the bikini with the headband . . . now that would have been too Palm Beach!” she says.

From the beach to lunch to a gallery opening, when it comes to donning terrycloth today, the appeal for Mayer remains the same as it did when she was a child; “There’s a functionality and chicness to it, but there’s also a luxe element—it’s not only playful, but really beautifully made!”

London Calling: My Summer Season Dilemmas

Last Thursday I went to the Royal Ascot Ladies’ Day as a guest of my friend Stephen Jones and won £70—my first bet ever—on the Queen’s horse. Score! I stood at the rails and watched her four-year-old filly, Estimate, charge into the lead in the last seconds of the race. Hurrah! The stands roared. Top hats were thrown in the air. In her entire reign, Her Majesty had never looked more thrilled and smiley as when she patted that horse on the muzzle in the winner’s enclosure. They say it was an historic moment at Royal Ascot—he first time a British monarch had won the Gold Cup, and in the sixtieth anniversary of her coronation.
It was an historic moment for me, too. It’s the first time I’ve managed to feel okay about what I was wearing at the races. Royal Ascot is just one of the many sartorial minefields of the summer formalwear-dressing hurdles that face a woman like me. There are rules. There is weather. There are hats. It’s often hard-going underfoot. One is visible, and critiqued for compliance and chic, within the conservative circumstances. How to get around it?
This year, I found my lucky solution at John Rocha, the father of the young London designer, Simone. I wore John’s pink organza meringue of a hat in this picture, but with a cream lace calf-length dress from his store in Dover Street, covered up with an ivory Martin Margiela tuxedo jacket that I’ve saved for years. I trotted out on the train from London in a pair of Céline sandals (complete agony, by day’s end). Many were the women who were limping home, barefoot, carrying their shoes, on the return journey.
But here’s the issue: Society summer dressing—in the day—is whole different number from getting yourself up for the fashion show circuit. The latter, I am used to. Evening and cocktail in all their permutations are well catered to on the runways. Going to shows, you can do your thing with searing color, with pants, with the witty sweatshirt and clashing bag. But when your thing has to be tempered by various permutations of formality? When you want to fit in, courteously, yet be fashionable and still feel like yourself? Ooh, that’s difficult.
What you need to “pass” are all sorts of things I now realize I overlooked on the spring runways, but wish I’d paid more attention to now. Cream, white, and pale pastel dresses somehow didn’t seem so relevant in March, but some designers, like Clare Waight Keller at Chloé, were thinking well ahead. So, I now come to find, was Christopher Kane. Mostly, his gaffer-tape and pink rubber dresses made the news, but surprisingly he was in there with plenty of the formal-yet-edgy daywear too.
Lesson? When panicked for a solution, broaden your field of vision. Going back to study Jil Sander—another designer I wouldn’t expect to cover summery daytime formality—I see how comfortable I could feel standing around clinking champagne glasses on a lawn in these tailored pieces. Swap the boots for heels, and these would be perfect:
L’Wren Scott is another one who absolutely knows what she’s doing when it comes to designing within the apparently narrow confines of socially appropriate dressing. How impossible would it be to have a boring, wall-flowery day as a wedding guest if you sashayed in wearing any of these?Another designer I now wish I’d placed an early bet on is Bouchra Jarrar. I’m a natural trouser-wearer. Her sartorial negotiations between simplicity, elegance, and just-enough decorative prettiness are at perfect pitch.
Alas, unless you hit lucky in the sales, all these summer recommendations have probably disappeared by now. Nil desperandum. These days, there’s always another mini-season to fill the gaps. In the pre-fall collections, due in July, Erdem’s new ideas about daytime floral dressing (and some nice solid color frocks) are on the way.
Most of all, though, I find myself poring over these photographs from Raf Simons’s Christian Dior pre-fall. The French have never veered from their innate knowledge of the kind of restraint that, paradoxically, makes a woman stand out in a crowd. Now that Simons has come along to modernize it, I can’t help thinking how much I’d like to be part of it. http://www.kissyprom.co.uk/prom-dresses-under-100-online

Does unruly hair equal a crankier you?

It’s not the worst of your problems, but having a bad hair day can simply ruin your entire day. As if one bad hair day wasn’t enough, a new study reveals that women spend 20 years of their lives suffering from bad hair days, and that can affect their mood and confidence.
In a study that was done by budget hotel chain Travelodge in London, 2,000 women were surveyed to investigate how their tresses affect their mood when they begin their day.
Research in London shows that bad hair days can ruin your day and make you less confident.
From frizzy and fine hair to dry and damaged hair, along with the mornings when hair misbehaves, just adds to the daily frustrations of females which affect them emotionally.
On average, women wake up with unruly hair at least three times every week. That means they will be cranky for half the week. On average, a British female will have 7,332 bad hair days in a lifetime — equivalent to 20 years of her life suffering from bad hair.
While there are ways to deal with hair problems, the study shows that women let bad hair moments ruin their mood. They will feel depressed for at least four hours and 26 minutes during the day, while also feeling less confident.
“Women feel like entirely different individuals when their hair does not behave,” said Shakila Ahmed, spokeswoman of Travelodge. “Having unmanageable tresses can make a woman feel tired, grumpy and less confident. In contrast, a great hair day will make a woman feel sexy, confident and ready to take on the world.”
Bad hair day solutions:
1. Greasy hair — Simple updos are the best. Just use a few clips and pins to hold your hair in place.
2. Wavy hair — For the days your uncontrolled waves are going everywhere, try simply braiding it. You can choose a French braid or a simple one to set that hair straight.
3. No time for styling — The classiest way to look trendy is with a ponytail. Whether you want to tease the front of your hair, tie the pony high or low, in any case, it looks great.

What Would Yeezus Wear? Kanye West's Style Evolution

“Respect my trendsetting abilities,” decreed Kanye West in a recent New York Times interview. “I understand culture. I am the nucleus.” When it comes to music, the rapper’s six consecutive platinum albums vouch for such claims. But fashion has proven a trickier terrain for West to navigate. A disciple-like enthusiasm and close designer friendships haven’t kept the self-proclaimed “Louis Vuitton Don” from making a few style missteps over the years, from an ill-advised mullet to outlandish gold chains to a fondness for coordinating outfits with girlfriend (and mother of his newborn daughter), Kim Kardashian.

More notably, West’s wardrobe has taken a turn for the androgynous, with the rapper performing in outré pieces like a beaded Maison Martin Margiela mask, a Céline silk blouse, and a leather Givenchy skirt. Such ensembles reflect the same boundary-pushing impulse at play in West’s new album, Yeezus, out today. Aggressive and brash, the record is the performer’s most provocative to date. (Almost as provocative as, say, a rap star wearing a skirt).

Trendsetting prowess aside, it’s ultimately West’s ability to think outside the menswear department—expressing himself as freely through fashion as he does through verse—that cements his status as a true style original.

Isn't It Ironic: Maurizio Cattelan on His New Capsule Sweatshirt Collection with MSGM

The Milanese fashion pack tends to migrate on Saturday nights to Plastic, the popular club where snazzily dressed regulars go to see what other people are doing and wearing. It was here that the artist and sometime Milan resident Maurizio Cattelan spotted the flamboyant, kitschy prints and New Wave style of MSGM, the irreverent Italian fashion upstart that has become a magnet for a new generation of trend-happy shoppers.

This month, Massimo Giorgetti, the label’s energetic founder has collaborated with Toilet Paper—the audacious art magazine begun by Cattelan and photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari—to create a lineup of bold unisex summer sweatshirts destined for a festa near you. Given carte blanche to use the irreverent magazine’s visual archive as he wished, Giorgetti picked ten charged images to appear on the cult label’s crewnecks rendered in acid colors and ice cream hues. His cheery and cheeky designs recall Italy’s high-energy glory days and buzzy collections from the likes of Fiorucci, despite the designer’s reluctance to revisit decades past. “I don’t like nostalgia,” says Giorgetti. “I prefer irony.”

Here, Cattelan talks to Vogue about the collaboration, the Venice Biennale, and his possible comeback.

How were the original images of your biannual publication Toilet Paper conceived?

Every time we shoot a new issue we try to widen borders of Toilet Paper’s definition a bit further…we know for sure that it isn’t advertising or even a work of art! TP production is an articulated process: It often happens, starting from one precise idea; only through a series of mistakes and misunderstandings do we get into the final image.

Did you have fun at the Venice Biennale? Did you spot anything interesting?

On one hand, Venice is the most dreamlike and romantic town I know; on the other hand, during the Biennale opening, there is a clubbing mood in the air . . . I think it has always been like that, just think of the Carnevale days! In a way, the Biennale marks the transition between one era and another. Take Camille Henrot’s work, for example. I think it perfectly represents our time­—we have the sensation that everything is about to change but we are not sure yet in which direction . . . so we rather walk like a prawn, always looking at our back.

On the eve of your retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2011, you said you were retiring from the art world. Now, you are showing your work at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. Is this a comeback?

A comeback on horses’ backs! No, I won’t backtrack: Making Toilet Paper is still something that moves my floor [loose translation: rocks my world], so that I don’t desire to leave the game for now!

Do you have any Milan recommendations—good walks, places to eat, drink, or dance?

For a good meal in a family environment and the latest politics and soccer news, Il Carpaccio is the place to be. If you’re searching for a time machine, head over to Sala Venezia: a timeless ballroom with eternally young dancers.

http://www.kissyprom.co.uk/chiffon-prom-dresses

Let's make-up with Bina Khan: Finding your look

Thanks to the brutal invasiveness of the internet, we are able to know every celebrity secret that is out there. Though I feel that poking our noses into a singer or actor’s personal life is vile, I do however, enjoy having an all-access pass to people’s style evolutions.

This week, I thought I would use one such journey to demonstrate the mistakes we have all made on our path to stylish enlightenment. I have selected Jennifer Lopez because a) she looks a little desi, b) she has always had a brilliant set of bones and c) she doesn’t appear to have had any plastic surgery. It looks to me like her transformation has been brought about by good make-up and proper styling. Here is what we can learn from her early mistakes and later triumphs. Does anything look familiar?

Finding your look

1. A very sweet looking, young Jennifer ­— she looks beautiful with all her glorious assets clearly visible. But an overly-defined, dark and lip-linered pout is taking the emphasis away from an alluringly angled eye shape and cheekbone. The lip colour ages her and brings out the darker hues in her skin, pigmenting the skin around the mouth and under the inexplicably ignored eyes.

2. A classic lesson in everything that was wrong with the late ‘90s. Overly-plucked brows, muddy-coloured, one tone make-up and a ghastly dark lip liner and gloss combination leave a very young Jennifer looking ancient and washed-out. And a little like she has been eating paan!

3. Here, we start to see the beginnings of the successful hallmarks of the Jlo look, though she looks far from what we are used to. While the contouring and highlighting of her mouth, nose and lip areas are decidedly much more successful, the decision to under play her glorious cheekbones and the fantastic angle of the underneath of her eyes leaves her still largely unrecognisable.

4. By this point, we can at last recognise the face that we have come to know, largely because the cheekbones have at long last been emphasised, as have her eyes, from both above and below. The lack of contouring on her nose, the lack of false lashes or mascara, the overly plucked brows (not to mention the comically bad tonging of her hair) leave her a few key steps away from the look that is just within reach.

5. And here, we are at long last — the glowy, girl next door, clean Jlo look. The softer brows, softer hair, all over glow and strong contouring bring the look home. But she didn’t stop there. Once she was done with the movie roles that cast her as the girl next door, or the maid, Ms Lopez decided to open the door to glamour.

6. All of the hallmarks of the Lopez look are maintained and then amped up even further. The contouring of the face is a lesson in the art; the very sharp, luminous highlights of the cheekbone and inner V of her eye, make her skin look younger than it did in her earlier pictures. The false lashes and eye make-up (both above and below) show off to perfection the divine angle and shape of the eyes, perfectly framed by the softer brows. A splash of peach on the lips and on the apples of the cheek, balance the beige and grey of the eye creating a look that brings out the best in her face.

7. Demonstrating just how important the underneath of the eye is to a shape like Ms Lopez’s, this look manages to make her look positively doe-eyed. To modernise this smokey look, strong luminous white inner V highlights on the eyes have been added. The contouring is, as always, key (as is the nude lip and strong, but soft brow).

8. Following the adage that one feature must be worked on at a time and not both, here we see Jennifer with a bold and beautiful red lip and a neutral eye. However, some epic individual lashes have been added, above and below, to give the eyes some serious oomph. A strong but soft brow, clean, glowing highlights and some truly heavenly, warm, sun kissed contouring completes this fabulous look.

Hello, Moto

Black might be the motorcycle jacket’s de facto hue, but a number of designers have rendered ornate, polychrome twists on the wardrobe staple for Resort ’14. Take, for instance, 2013 CFDA Accessories Designer of the Year winner, Phillip Lim, who offered up an asymmetrical, cropped iteration of the moto jacket, replete with banded shoulders and an aerodynamic pattern that cut across the front (above, left). Combining a graphic eighties punch with a downtown sort of futurism, the topper was a prime example of Lim’s clean, sporty brand of quirkiness. Meanwhile, Erdem Moralioglu (above, right) showed an option that was thick, greasy, and yes, noir, but printed with a venerable thicket of English seaside flora (for inspiration, the designer looked through his mother’s old photographs from vacations to the British littoral). And up-and-coming New York-based designer Jonathan Simkhai turned out a custom-printed pony-hair jacket with sleeves in contrasting leather (above, center). “We wanted to create a Western feel, but with a techy spin,” the designer told Style.com when asked about the splatter motif. “It’s meant to be a futuristic cowhide.” And for the woman wondering how to pull off such an item, Simkhai offers: “Pair a statement jacket with soft silk track pants—it makes for a comfortable yet stylish transitional outfit.”

Joey Essex – why is his haircut banned in Billericay?

Joey Essex … haircut crisis.

Name: Joey Essex

Age: 22

Appearance: Hahahahaha ...

Excuse me? … hahahahahahahaha....

Yes, you said that. What does it mean? It means he looks as if he's been dunked up to the eyebrows in a vat of Immac.

It's called Veet now. Whatever. He's someone off The Only Way is Essex and he's basically hairless until you get to the top of his head, where a luxuriant bouffant can be found. Ergo: prat.

It's not easy being a young person these days. All the non-ridiculous haircuts have been taken. You have to let them experiment with their own style. No you don't. Essex (the person) is corrupting Britain's youth and damaging their education!

Perhaps that's a bit extreme? No it isn't. And one head teacher in Billericay isn't standing for it any more. Sue Hammond of Billericay School has written a letter to parents telling them not to let their sons adopt what she calls "extreme hairstyles", or "he'll be unable to attend mainstream lessons until such time as his hair has grown out".

Crikey. You may well say that, but this is only applying the school's uniform policy, and it has the support of Basildon council. "I would ask parents to be patient," says deputy leader Phil Turner, "and take on the message that it's meant not as a draconian measure, but a plea for pupils to look nice."

Naturally we all rely on Basildon council for advice in that department. The school has even been in contact with the town's barbers to warn them that they will not tolerate hair around the sides that's any shorter than grade two. Some barbers are warning boys about it, but they say they will continue to do fuseys if their customers insist.

Sorry, what are fuseys? The "fusey" is what Essex named the hairstyle. As well as his ghastly new boutique in Brentwood. He's also allegedly responsible for the word "reem" – to mean "attractive" – as well as "creepysick", the meaning of which remains unclear.

I see. Do you?

Not really. I thought as much.

Do say: "Your fusey's looking well reem."

Don't say: "I didn't know you could get sunstroke from a tanning machine."