Fashion

With traditional fabrics, Nigerian designers fashion a new aesthetic

By Debra A. Gilbert 4 weeks ago

By Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) – Weaving contemporary designs into a traditional West African fabric, Nigerian Tsemaye Binitie is creating fashion he hopes can also bridge the gap between luxury and the everyday.

His material of choice is Aso-oke, a hand-woven cloth indigenous to the Yoruba people and historically used on special occasions.

Binitie, who cut his teeth as a design assistant with Stella McCartney in 2005, began using the fabric in 2017, and he infuses the yellow dresses that are his signature creations with cottons and silks to give them a post-modern feel.

“We started to use contemporary African art and culture within the threads of the collection so you see hints of it or very … obvious (signs),” said Binitie, who divides his time between Lagos and London.

“It’s sort of informed fabric, informed colour, informed styling.”

Priced at between $300 and $4,000, his TB12 custom collection features

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In Berlin, the Reference Festival Brings Fashion, Art, and Culture Together in Virtual Reality

By Debra A. Gilbert 2 months ago

But more than just offering virtual shorthands of physical realities, the Reference Festival also transformed IRL programming into a singular digital experience. Within the virtual “room” was a stage live-streaming performances by Anne Imhof, Eliza Douglas, and MJ Harper, styled by Stefano Pilati and Random Identities. In person, Imhof, Douglas, Harper and other performers were in the Zeiss Major Planetarium, a resounding structure, but online they were intimately accessible across a screen within a screen: The Reference Realities site offered a side “stage” to access their live performances. The festival also included talks with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Honey Dijon; HF Talk founder Iolo Lewis Edwards; and Tiffany Godoy.

Chapel Petrassi x Mowalola’s installation at the Reference Studios space

All together, the festival was a testament to the ways creativity thrives even in the worst of times—and not just creativity, but ingenuity. Set against the mundane, repetitive nature of digital

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‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Star Momona Tamada on Claudia Kishi’s Fashion Influence and Her ‘Cool Nod’ to ‘Clueless’

By Jaime E. Love 9 months ago

And, yes, the 13-year-old did take a “one-of-a-kind” wardrobe treasure home with her from set.

Momona Tamada wears her favorite outfit as Claudia in 'The Baby-Sitters Club.'
Momona Tamada wears her favorite outfit as Claudia in ‘The Baby-Sitters Club.’

Like her character Claudia Kishi narrating the opening scene of episode two in “The Baby-Sitters Club,” Momona Tamada could recite a laundry list of her own talents: dramatic and comedic acting, dancing and experimenting with style. The latter, in particular, has been influenced by her portrayal of the iconic Asian-American tween in the Netflix series — after all, she did wear the most fun fashion-y costumes in the series, including the 2020 powersuit take on Cher’s yellow plaid in “Clueless,” the Tippi Hedren in “The Birds”-themed Halloween get-up, a very “Ruth Bader Ginsberg-chic” dress and all the fruit earrings and colorful scrunchies. 

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The Costumes in Netflix’s ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Are Peak Cool Tween™ (With a

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Holding Up a Looking Glass to Diversity in Fashion

By Jaime E. Love 10 months ago

Click here to read the full article.

BURBERRY GROUP PLC

THE NUMBERS

Employees: 10,000 worldwide, according to LinkedIn

Nationalities represented: 120

Executive board: 11 members; 1 Black member, Debra Lee

 

IN THE MIRROR: Burberry chief executive officer Marco Gobbetti didn’t mince words: “We don’t have all the answers,” he said. “But we know that the step change we need to make is increasing representation at all levels of our company.”

While neither Gobbetti nor Burberry’s survey response articulated current numbers or defined targets, their absence read as reflective of a work in progress rather than evasion. “We have prioritized getting a complete picture of our employee population so we can make informed, meaningful commitments,” the survey response said, adding that Burberry will provide details on overall strategy in the coming months, “including a holistic and global D&I [diversity and inclusion] policy that will cement both resources and accountability

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