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    In the End, ‘The New Look’ Left Us Wanting More

    More Dior. More Chanel. More fashion!The last episode of “The New Look,” the Apple TV+ series about Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and the birth of post-World War II fashion, aired on April 4. A fictional take on the choices those designers had to make to survive, the show offered its own new look, not just at the origin story of a dress style, but at the actual characters behind the brands. Here, the Styles editor Stella Bugbee and the fashion critic Vanessa Friedman debate the possible repercussions for the two dominant red carpet names.Vanessa Friedman So my big question, after watching the whole series, is, Will this change how people think about Dior and Chanel? Those brands, after all, bear the names of their founders, and this show is the first time I expect most viewers will have been confronted with the idea of them as real individuals, with many — in the case of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who is depicted as a Nazi collaborator, even if a somewhat unintentional one, very many — human frailties. What do you think?Stella Bugbee It has the potential to personalize these megabrands — for better or worse, since the show is riddled with factual inaccuracies. While pointing to Mademoiselle Chanel’s Nazi past, the show paints her choices as something almost verging on feminism. It’s a tidy bit of propaganda in a way. And as for Monsieur Dior, it takes pains to paint him as a success almost despite himself.But the best way it humanizes these characters is through the compelling performances of Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche. I was rooting for both of them. And I found that I wanted to know more about each brand, so that seems like a win.Ben Mendelsohn as Christian Dior and Maisie Williams as his sister, Catherine, who was in the French resistance during World War II. AppleTV+VF Dior comes off as the hero of the series, while Chanel is the villain, even if, as you say, she has a feminist bent, especially when she is confronting the Wertheimers, her backers, about getting a more even split of the proceeds. They ask her how she could use their Jewishness against them, and she asks them if they have ever considered what it is to be a single woman running her own business (a complicated equivalency).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ye Is Sued for Hostile Work Environment at Donda Academy and Yeezy

    A former employee sued the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, claiming a hostile work environment at Yeezy, his fashion brand, and Donda Academy, his private school.Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, was sued Tuesday by a former employee who accused him of discrimination and creating a hostile work environment by calling Adolf Hitler “great,” disparaging Jews and saying that “gay people are not true Christians.”The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Trevor Phillips, who says he was hired in November 2022, around the time a series of antisemitic remarks publicly made by Ye lost the artist his major-label record deal and put his businesses in jeopardy.Phillips was initially hired to oversee “projects related to growing cotton” and other plants in an effort to make Yeezy, Ye’s fashion brand, “self-sustainable,” the lawsuit said, and then went on to work for Donda Academy, Ye’s private school in Southern California.Phillips’s lawsuit claims that Ye made antisemitic comments in front of staff members at Donda Academy, including, “the Jews are out to get me” and “the Jews are stealing all my money.” After Adidas ended its decade-long partnership with Ye over his public remarks, the lawsuit claimed, the rapper told Phillips: “The Jews are working with Adidas to freeze up my money to try and make me broke!”The lawsuit claims that Ye treated Black employees at Donda Academy, including Phillips, “considerably worse than white employees.”Representatives for Ye and Donda Academy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Decline of Sean Combs’ Revolt TV and Other Business Ventures

    A restless ambition took him from hip-hop to the Met Gala, a reality show, a fashion label, a fragrance line and his own cable network. Then came the accusations and federal raids.Long before he was accused of sexual misconduct in a series of lawsuits, and long before federal agents in military gear raided his homes in Miami and Los Angeles, Sean Combs was unforgivable.That was the name he had selected for his first fragrance, which he sold through a partnership with Estée Lauder.It was promoted as a scent that “exudes the energy, sexiness and elegance of Sean Combs,” and he was supposed to give it a publicity boost in April 2006 by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange alongside William Lauder, the Estée Lauder chief executive, and Terry Lundgren, the head of Federated Department Stores.But Mr. Combs didn’t arrive in time for the opening of the market, saying he had been stuck in traffic. So his fellow business titans did the honors without him.By then, Mr. Combs had successfully made the transition from Puff Daddy to the world’s most successful hip-hop mogul.Soon after the launch of his fragrance, Unforgivable, Mr. Combs appeared at the New York Stock Exchange with, from left to right: Todd Kahn, an executive at Sean John; John Demsey, the president of Sean John Fragrances; John Thain, the head of the N.Y.S.E.; Terry Lundgren, the chief executive of Federated Department Stores; and William Lauder, the chief executive of Estée Lauder.Seth Wenig/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Sean Combs’ Cassie Lawsuit Settlement Was Only the Beginning of His Troubles

    The hip-hop mogul denied sexual assault accusations in a bombshell suit in November. As more allegations piled up, his business empire, and reputation, faltered.It took just one day for Sean Combs to settle a bombshell lawsuit in November that accused him of rape and physical abuse. For a moment, it may have seemed that the hip-hop mogul’s lawyers had managed to quickly contain the reputational damage he faced.But it turns out that Mr. Combs’s problems were only beginning.For years, accusations of violence trailed Mr. Combs, who since the 1990s has been known as Puff Daddy and Diddy. The accusations had little impact, however, on his public persona as a raffish celebrity who was a fixture in gossip columns, a personal brand crystallized by the name of his music label: Bad Boy. But the suit in November, filed by his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura — who makes music as the singer Cassie — seemed to open the floodgates.A string of other lawsuits followed, accusing him of various forms of sexual assault and misconduct. Mr. Combs, 54, has vehemently denied all the allegations, but the graphic and detailed complaint by Ms. Ventura — and the headlines that followed — changed that narrative to a degree that now imperils Mr. Combs’s business empire and has made him a pariah in the music industry. And a raid by federal authorities at two of his homes on Monday suggested that authorities are considering possible criminal charges.Police officers blocked off the road during a raid of a home in Los Angeles tied to Mr. Combs on Monday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesAs the allegations against Mr. Combs have accumulated, his lucrative business dealings — which, besides music, have included fashion, two liquor brands, a cable television channel and an e-commerce platform — have been threatened. And the employee ranks at Combs Global, his company, are now a fraction of what they were less than a year ago.A deal with the spirits giant Diageo was the source of much of Combs Global’s income and Mr. Combs’s wealth. But even before the recent accusations, there were signs that the collaboration was fraying. Mr. Combs sued Diageo last May, accusing the company of racism and failing to support a tequila brand they were partners in — allegations that Diageo denied in court papers. The suit was settled in January, after multiple sexual assault suits had been filed, with Diageo saying it had severed all ties with him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Barbara Walters’s Wardrobe Was For Sale This Week in NYC

    Women in media recently had a chance to browse and buy clothes owned by the trailblazing TV news anchor.If anyone could make a baby pink suit look intimidating, it was Barbara Walters. The TV news anchor coolly lobbed questions at the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in a 1989 interview while sheathed shoulder to knee in pastel Chanel and pearls.Back then Ms. Walters, who died in 2022 at the age of 93, reigned among the most celebrated, highly paid and formidable journalists in broadcast news. A trailblazer, she made history as the first female co-host of the “Today” show — and then made history again when she became the first female anchor of the ABC evening news. Later in her decades-long career she migrated to the newsmagazine show “20/20” and to “The View,” the daytime talk show she cocreated.Ms. Walters wore a pink Chanel skirt suit while interviewing the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 1989. Kimberly Butler/Getty ImagesAlong the way Ms. Walters, who formally retired in 2014, became as famous as many of the high-profile subjects she interviewed, a group that included Katharine Hepburn, Anna Wintour, Michael Jackson and Monica Lewinsky, as well as several U.S. presidents and other world leaders, like Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin.Her wardrobe for such encounters was both shrewdly considered and often audacious, filling with brash hits of color as her fame grew. This week bits of Ms. Walters’s sartorial legacy were on view — and on sale — at a showroom in Midtown Manhattan as part of a two-day event that drew a steady stream of women in media eager to comb through racks of clothing the journalist had owned.Gowns and cocktail dresses owned by Ms. Walters were among the items for sale.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersThe event also featured some of the more colorful attire owned by Ms. Walters.Lou Rocco/ABCWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ira von Fürstenberg, Jet-Setting Princess and Actress, Dies at 83

    With her aristocratic lineage, high-profile husbands and famous friends, she embodied a chic life of luxury as an international social figure.Ira von Fürstenberg, who came as close as one can get to having it all as an Italian-born princess descended from Charlemagne, an heiress to the Fiat fortune, a Vogue model, a big-screen ingénue and a globe-trotting bon vivant, died on Feb. 19 at her home in Rome. She was 83.Her son, Hubertus von Hohenlohe, said she died after breaking ribs and perforating her lungs in a domestic accident.Blending the gilded privilege of the old-world European aristocracy with the élan of the midcentury film and fashion peerage, Ms. von Fürstenberg seemingly defined the term “jet setter,” bouncing between homes in Rome, London, Paris and Madrid and on Lake Geneva.“My only real home is on airplanes,” she said. “I spend so much time going from country to country that my children suspect that I’m really a flight attendant.”She shared a surname with the renowned fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg, who married the princess’s fashion designer brother, Egon, in 1969. “When I first met Egon, she was the famous sister,” Diane told Women’s Wear Daily last month. “She had gotten married in Venice and was a movie star.”Ms. von Fürstenberg in Monte Carlo in 2007. Descended from Charlemagne and the founder of Fiat, she lived a lavish life, including as an actress, model, artist and fashion executive.Hubertus von HohenloheWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Best Oscars Red Carpet Looks: Emma Stone, Colman Domingo and More

    At the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, the red carpet showed not only its true color but also its reputation as a vehicle for elegant, over-the-top and even political fashion.Though there were bright moments — Cynthia Erivo’s dress was a “Wicked” shade of green, Taylor Zakhar Perez wore powder blue Prada — many of the gowns and tuxedos that graced the carpet were black. Some stars’ ensembles harked back to attire they wore at prior Oscars ceremonies. Marlee Matlin said that her shimmering lilac Rodarte gown nodded to the dress she wore when she won the best actress award in 1987, and Lupita Nyong’o went with a pale bluish-silver Armani dress inspired by the color of the gown she wore when she won the best supporting actress award in 2014.Sparkling brooches were among the most visible accessories on both men and women, as were tiny red pins calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The Israel-Hamas war also influenced action off the carpet, with protests taking place as celebrities were arriving at the ceremony.Of all the fashion on display at the Oscars, these 19 looks stood out as doing the most.Billie Eilish: Most Young Old Hollywood!A power skirt suit.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe Gen Z singer, a songwriter for “Barbie,” dialed up the glamour with flowing hair, a houndstooth Chanel bag and a tweed skirt suit with an Artists4Ceasefire pin on the jacket.Lupita Nyong’o: Most Icy Cool!Shining like a diamond.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Oscar-Nominated Costume Designer for ‘Oppenheimer’ Shares Her Favorite Looks

    The costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, who is nominated for her first Oscar for “Oppenheimer,” is responsible for outfitting some of the most iconic films of the ’80s and ’90s.Everett CollectionEverett CollectionUnlike many designers, much of the work of the costume designer Ellen Mirojnick is contemporary. Her filmography is evidence of the impact she has had on the look and feel of some of the most iconic films of the 1980s and ’90s: Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct” (1992) and “Showgirls” (1995), Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction” (1987) and “Unfaithful” (2002), and Andrew Davis’s “A Perfect Murder” (1998). These films helped define the distinctly elegant yet dangerous aesthetic of the erotic thrillers that once dominated the box office.After more than 40 years in the industry, Ms. Mirojnick has received her first Oscar nomination for her austere, sharply tailored looks in “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic about the physicist who led the effort that produced the first nuclear weapons. While she has decades of expertise creating an eclectic variety of costumes, ranging in mood from the understated to over-the-top, her work does not span the many costume dramas that are typically favored during awards season. Instead, her most recognized characters often feel fashionable in a way that is more modern and real.In a recent video call, Ms. Mirojnick reflected on eight of her favorite looks from her career.Everett Collection‘Fatal Attraction’ (1987)“Fatal Attraction” marked the first of many collaborations between Ms. Mirojnick and the actor Michael Douglas. “What was fascinating about that particular moment in time was that Adrian Lyne, Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer were all kind of at the same level,” she recalled. “It was a great way to begin a working relationship, because everybody had equal stakes in front of them.”The designer and Mr. Douglas originally had differing ideas of how his character should dress. Her interpretation was “much more classic, fashionable and monochromatic,” she said. After rounds of fittings and discussions about “honing his wardrobe to a place that felt very New York and very cool and attractive in a way that was different from how we saw a lawyer in New York in prior films,” she said, “we finally got in a groove that was simpatico, and we were able to create a character that had all of those aspects and felt very real.”Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More