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      Homer Simpson Was Made for Fashion

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      Behind the painstaking creation of the Balenciaga-Simpsons episode that took nearly a year to make.Clapping, whispering, cameras snapping, questionable music: These are the sounds of a classic fashion show. Bursts of laughter? Those are less common.Yet several were heard last Saturday night, rolling around the 19th-century Parisian theater where the great and storied house of Cristóbal Balenciaga skipped the traditional catwalk and screened a special 10-minute episode of “The Simpsons.”It was a surprise more than a year in the making, and the result of a sometimes grueling collaboration between two exacting creative entities known for their attention to detail. So far it has been viewed more than five million times on YouTube.In the episode, Homer writes to Balenciaga (“Dear Balun, Balloon, Baleen, Balenciaga-ga,” he says as he struggles to pronounce the famous fashion name) for Marge’s birthday, explaining that his wife has always wanted to own something by the brand. He asks for the cheapest item, which the Balenciaga team interprets as “just one of those American gags nobody gets” and sends him a dress that costs 19,000 euros. After wearing it briefly, Marge returns the dress with a note saying she’ll “always remember those 30 minutes of feeling just a little special.”Back in Europe, the Balenciaga artistic director Demna Gvasalia declares her note “the saddest thing I’ve ever heard, and I grew up in the Soviet Union. This is exactly the kind of woman I want to reach!” He then travels to Springfield and decides to “rescue” the “style-deprived” by inviting them to model his clothes in Paris, explaining that he wants “the world to see real people in my show.”The 10 minutes are packed with Easter eggs for die-hard fans of both “The Simpsons” and Balenciaga. A private Balenciaga jet has landing gear that looks like the brand’s famous sock sneakers; Waylon Smithers chooses a dress to wear when given his choice of outfit; Lisa at first acknowledges that walking a runway is “superficial” but then enjoys it immensely.The collaboration began in April 2020, when Mr. Gvasalia sent the “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening an email about working together.Marge in the golden ballroom dress from the summer 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMr. Gvasalia, 40, who was born in Georgia and watched the show when he was growing up, said the idea came to him during the first lockdown of 2020. He has a penchant for inserting Balenciaga into mass-market trends: Under his direction, the brand has collaborated with other American sensations, like Crocs and Fortnite.About “The Simpsons,” he said, “I always loved the tongue-in-cheek humor, the romance and the charming naïveness of it.”Al Jean, an executive producer and writer of “The Simpsons,” said that when he learned of the Balenciaga project in January, “my response was, ‘What’s Balenciaga?’” He turned to Wikipedia for answers.His first pitch to Balenciaga had a similar framing to the one they ended up going with — Marge’s birthday wish — but diverged with Mr. Gvasalia’s character deciding that the brand’s next show would be held in Springfield. When the Balenciaga plane lands there, its models aren’t allowed into the United States because they’re too thin and beautiful. Springfield’s residents become the models, their nuclear plant is the runway, and the ghost of Mr. Balenciaga makes an appearance.But Balenciaga preferred that Springfield be brought to Paris, Mr. Jean said. From there, the story was revised and tweaked — to the point that the writers joked about “Draft 52 of the Balenciaga script” — up until two days before the Paris showing.Mr. Gvasalia made specific contributions to the script, Mr. Jean said. For example, the episode ends with Homer embracing and singing “La Mer” to Marge on a post-show party boat on the Seine. But Mr. Gvasalia wanted one final joke, so he asked that Homer’s jacket be set on fire by a Frenchman smoking a cigar. Mr. Jean then suggested that Anna Wintour, who had appeared in the front row of the fashion show, try to put out the fire with expensive champagne, which Homer tries to drink instead.“She said, ‘Please don’t have me do that,’ so it became Demna,” Mr. Jean said. (Ms. Wintour otherwise approved of her likeness being used but declined to voice her character, he said.) And that earlier line about Mr. Gvasalia growing up in the Soviet Union? The “Simpsons” team had decided to cut it, but Mr. Gvasalia asked for it to be reinstated.He also asked, the day before the show, to change the color of a tear Ms. Wintour sheds while watching Marge model. The tear was too light, and it wouldn’t read onscreen unless it was a darker blue. Mr. Jean and the director David Silverman agreed.“They were definitely our match in terms of, to the last detail, making sure everything is perfect,” Mr. Jean said. “The animation crew, this is the hardest thing they’ve had to do since ‘The Simpsons Movie.’”Maggie and Lisa in Balenciaga crushed velvet jersey gowns from the spring 2021 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationBart in a Balenciaga look from winter 2020, including a Wifi vintage jersey XL T-shirt and black leather Cuissard boots.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMarge wearing a fictional Balenciaga dress in the “Simpsons” episode.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationSmithers in a one-shoulder pantadress from the winter 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationSherri and Terri wearing turtleneck dresses in bonded velvet from the summer 2020 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationMr. Silverman, who directed that 2007 film, said the biggest challenge was getting the “accuracy needed in the clothing,” which involved inventive post-animation effects to capture the distinct textures and movement of, for example, Marge’s runway look: a gold metallic ball gown.Balenciaga sent the “Simpsons” team 15 looks to choose from for the final show, all based on designs from the last five years. But putting them on the bodies of these universally recognizable cartoon characters wasn’t so straightforward.“It was tricky for us, capturing that balance of caricature and the integrity of the clothing,” Mr. Silverman said. “You’re translating the look of real clothing, real designs on these characters that aren’t exactly human proportions.”Mr. Silverman, who joked-but-not-really that this is how he spent his summer vacation, studied runway footage to figure out what the audience should be wearing and how the lighting should be hitting the catwalk.The script also had to capture the particular absurdity of the luxury fashion world and Balenciaga’s stature in that world — something that can’t be absorbed on Wikipedia. Mr. Jean said that in addition to the crash course in Balenciaga earlier in the year, watching the Netflix series about Halston, who was a great fan of Balenciaga, helped him understand the evergreen excessive culture of fashion.The supporting characters are also based on real people and animals, including Mr. Gvasalia’s husband, Loïk Gomez; their two dogs; the chief creative officer, Martina Tiefenthaler (who voiced herself); and workers from Balenciaga’s atelier who are finishing the collection on the plane while singing, “formidable, formidable.”Selma wearing a 3D double-breasted coat and a stretch velvet top from the winter 2018 collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationPatty in a swing doudoune from Demna Gvasalia’s fall 2016 debut collection.The Simpsons 20th TV AnimationThis is one of Mr. Gvasalia’s favorite scenes in the episode, he said: “It just makes me so happy every time I watch it.”As for Mr. Gvasalia’s voice, “we had to try to talk him into playing himself, but he didn’t want to,” Mr. Jean said. He felt that was consistent with Mr. Gvasalia’s recent decision to fully obscure his face and body during public appearances, creating confusion among observers as to whether it was really him.When asked why he wanted to align Balenciaga with “The Simpsons” and whether he felt the brands had any commonalities, Mr. Gvasalia said that “it’s more personal to me.”“I did not want to align anything or make sense of anything. I just wanted to create an iconic visual story.”While the novelty of the collaboration made it feel surprising, the brands share a similar ethos. They have an appreciation for self-referentiality, breaking the rules of presentation (airing an episode with live animation; turning a red carpet into a runway show without telling anyone) and bridging the highbrow and lowbrow. Mr. Jean called Mr. Gvasalia an “excellent collaborator,” and Mr. Gvasalia described the experience as “the highest level of collaboration” and “a dream come true.”“I did not realize how complex it is to create a 10-minute-long episode, so huge respect to that,” he said.Whether the act was meant to challenge fashion’s self-seriousness or the public’s notions of luxury — to bring Balenciaga to the suburban masses or to bring the suburban masses to Balenciaga — is something he will let the critics debate.What did he want out of this? “A smile and a good dose of fun.” More

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      in Movies

      Have You Run Out of Netflix Shows to Watch? Try These.

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      Fashion week may be back in-person, but not every designer wants to give up the digital approach. Marine Serre, Thebe Magugu, Burberry and Dries Van Noten explore the connection.PARIS — The last year and a half of being stuck to the small screen for work and pleasure, desperate for any new piece of escapism be it blockbuster or art house or glossy series, has to have changed forever our relationship to the moving picture, raising the stakes and the expectations. And if, when fashion first went online, the idea of transforming a show into a video seemed like a potential savior for the industry, it also exposed some of the limits in the fashion imagination.Watching model after model stroll by onscreen, even with some fancy camera angles, it soon became awfully easy to look away.This is especially true now that in-person shows — like big-screen movie experiences — are back; now that video has become a conscious choice, rather than a necessity. For some, such as Dries Van Noten, it’s a matter of pandemic health concerns; for others, such as Marine Serre, it’s a creative imperative.Look made from vintage linens, Marine Serre, spring 2022.via Marine SerreWhatever the motive, though, it has become increasingly clear that for a designer to opt for a mini-movie instead of a runway, there needs to be a specific reason for the video to be; something you can do onscreen that you can’t do in person.The medium has to be part of the message. (Apologies to Marshall McLuhan.)Ms. Serre, a designer who thinks deeply about the current state of things, has always understood this. (Well, she tends to be first with a lot of things: an inveterate bicyclist, she also made masks before masks became a part of daily life, and she’s already moved on from dependence on her widely-recognized crescent moon logo.)She made two of the most successful fashion films of the previous digital seasons, in part because each contained a narrative thread that — like her fashion, which was built on upcycling long before it became a runway trend — was rooted in the world. Not just the world of environmental politics, but of the literal materials of everyday life.To that end, she said, film “lets me go deeper than I can with a show, break the bounds of fashion in a way,” to show people not just how to wear her clothes but how to live and how to act within them.Dresses inspired by the print top in the family photo behind, Thebe Magugu, spring 2022.via Thebe MaguguShe did it again, this season, in a garden in the Marais, where her movie, “Ostel 24,” could premiere on a big screen. A day in the life of a single close-knit community, it showed them meditating, driving, kneading dough, eating, dancing alone in their rooms, crushing cherries for dye — above all, tending to one another. Taking care. Paying attention.That they happened to be wearing clothes that were also deeply imbued with a sense of the personal alchemy that can transform vintage Dutch linens (embroidered napkins and tablecloths) into delicate tea dresses, or checked terry-cloth dish towels into Chanel-like lunching suits, or ’90s popcorn tops no one likes anymore into extraordinary collages of print and color (sometimes 15 tops in one dress), was part of the story. A reminder that the choices you make matter, from what you put on in the morning to what you eat and whom you share it with.As, in a different way, was “Genealogy” from Thebe Magugu, like Ms. Serre a relatively young, independent designer who has found a more intimate voice through digital than in the echoing environs of the runway.Note the ears, Burberry, spring 2022.via BurberryA sort of family memory/therapy session, as well as a startlingly personal guide to his formative influences, the film featured Mr. Magugu conducting a kind of round table with his mother, Iris Magugu, and his maternal aunt, Esther Magugu, as they went through old family photos from their life in the South African mining town of Kimberley and discussed their favorite clothes — which Mr. Magugu had translated into his new collection.So his mom’s prized trench coat became a beige and sky blue off-the-shoulder trench dress. A nurse’s periwinkle blue uniform became a neat shirtdress with trumpet sleeves, hem dipping down in the back. Ditto the paisley print from a beloved frock, given a sophisticated rockabilly edge. As an expression of how the past informs the present (and future), and how memories are contained in what we wear, it was elegantly and potently done.And it made Riccardo Tisci’s Burberry video seem calculated and antiseptic by comparison: a sort of mix and match version of house codes (trench coats! leather!) with a world of nature overlay (gimmicky deer ear prosthetics; bat-ear hunting hats that might become viral successes; butterfly and cow prints and fluffy faux fox tail accessories) paraded through a landscape of rooms. It turned out many of the most classic looking trench coats were cut away entirely at the back to expose the rear. Shock! Transgression! Chilly? Also: Why?Dries Van Noten, spring 2022.Rafael PavarottiAt least Mr. Van Noten’s stop-and-start compilation of movement, color and music communicated the intensity of the collection, which viewed in accompanying still photographs looked like nothing so much as a flood of pure fashion: blown-up couture volumes and ruffles, waterfalls of rainbow fringe, blurry firework prints, denim covered in diamanté — idea after idea, each seeming more tactile and maximalist than the next.In a Zoom conversation, Mr. Van Noten said he had been thinking about festivals, both the desert happening Burning Man and India’s colorful Holi, and how people come together to express joy. His clothes were all that. But it made the disconnect between what they represented and the fact they were trapped, onscreen, especially frustrating. When what the viewer really should feel was enthralled.Emotional and technological connectivity isn’t enough; you need context, too. That’s the place where the stories we tell ourselves get woven into cloth. That’s when you hit rewind. And watch it again and again, until it’s ready-to-wear. More

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      in Television

      New York Fashion Week: Day 6

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      Introducing a duffel bag by Telfar, and a new TV channel to fight the bots.On Sunday, Telfar, the rebellious anti-fashion-with-a-capital-F brand, held a news conference to announce its latest project, Telfar TV.The 24-hour live TV station will be accessible via an app on smart TVs. The channel won’t be on YouTube or Instagram, the company said; there will be no way to share its programming or leave comments.It’s not yet clear what that programming may be or when it will air, though that seems to be the point: Telfar TV is a “void,” and a “vessel” for expression by the designer Telfar Clemens and his community.But here’s where fans of Telfar’s enormously popular shopping bags, the typically sold-out Bushwick Birkin, should pay close attention: Watching Telfar TV may be the best way to score a bag. Mr. Clemens is tired of bots — tired of the robots or people or robot-people who snap up his bags only to resell them for 10 times their original price.He is “here to take back every bag that the bot has stolen from us and give it right back to everybody in this room,” Mr. Clemens said.At unannounced intervals the TV station will air a QR code allowing viewers to shop the latest bag drop. The drop won’t be announced anywhere else. “We can drop exactly as many bags as people are watching,” said Babak Radboy, the creative director of Telfar.This will be tested with a new bag shape: the duffel, a buttery leather cylinder with long and short straps, imprinted with the brand’s “T” logo on its sides. Like the original Telfar shopping bag, it comes in small, medium and large sizes.“Wait, who wants one?” Mr. Clemens asked at the news conference, after rolling out black and white versions of the bags on a pedestal and unveiling them like a game show prize, eliciting cheers and grabby hands thrust in the air. “You gotta check out TC TV.” More

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      in Music

      The Uniform Cool of Charlie Watts

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      “Style is the answer to everything,” Charles Bukowski, of all people, once said in a lecture that’s still afloat in the ether of YouTube. Swigging Schlitz from a bottle, the pockmarked laureate of the underground discoursed on one of the few traits that, as is well known, one may possess though never acquire.Bullfighters have style and so do boxers, Bukowski said. He had seen more men with style inside of prison than outside its walls, he also somewhat questionably asserted. “To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it,” he then added — and that much, at least, seems indisputable.Nobody ever accused the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died Aug. 24 at 80, of dullness. Yet so granitic and unshowy was he relative to his preening bandmates — in their face paint, frippery and feathers — that it was easy to be distracted from the ineffable Watts cool that anchored the Stones sound and that drew on a lineage far older than rock.Well before joining what is generally called the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll group, Mr. Watts, a trained graphic artist who learned to play after giving up banjo and turning the body of one into a drum, was a seasoned sessions player. He considered himself at heart a jazzman; his heroes were musicians like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Lester Young and phenomenal pop crooners like the unfairly forgotten Billy Eckstine.While the rest of the Rolling Stones dressed the part of rock stars, Mr. Watts found his style groove on Savile Row. Here, with Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, he celebrates the opening of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” in 1983.Carlos Rene Perez/Associated PressMr. Watts in London, 1989.John Stoddart/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesIn a double-breasted suit, in 1992.Eamonn McCabe/Popperfoto, via Getty ImagesHe studied famously natty dressers like Fred Astaire, men who found a style and seldom deviated from it throughout their lives. A famous story about the Stones describes them starving in order to make enough money to recruit a drummer then in no great rush to join the band. “Literally!” Keith Richards wrote in “Life,” his excellent 2010 memoir. “We went shoplifting to get Charlie Watts.”Mr. Watts was expensive then and, as it happened, chose for himself an image that seldom looked otherwise. “To be honest,” he once told GQ. “I have a very old-fashioned and traditional mode of dress.”When his bandmates Mick Jagger and Mr. Richards began peacocking in Carnaby Road velvets, secondhand glad rags from Portobello Road, Moroccan djellabas, boas, sequined jumpsuits and dresses plucked from the wardrobes of their wives or girlfriends, Mr. Watts continued to dress as soberly as an attorney. And when, in the late 1970s, Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards began adding suiting to their wardrobe, their selections tended to feature nipped waists, four-lane lapels, checkerboard patterns or Oxford bag trousers from the brilliant and flamboyant upstart Tommy Nutter.“I always felt totally out of place with the Rolling Stones,” Mr. Watts told GQ, at least in style terms. Photographs appeared of the band with everyone else wearing sneakers and Mr. Watts in a pair of lace-ups from the 19th-century Mayfair shoemaker George Cleverley. “I hate trainers,” he said, meaning athletic shoes. “Even if they’re fashionable.”Perhaps in some ways Mr. Watts was just ahead of the other Stones and the rest of us in purely style terms — more evolved in his understanding of convention and how stealthily to subvert it, a bit like a jazz musician improvising on core melodies. There may even have been something punk in his determination early on to forgo the likes of Mr. Nutter and instead patronize some of the more venerable Savile Row tailors, places still so discreet in the 1970s that they often had no signs on their doors. It was his brilliance to mold what those tailors did to his own assured tastes.Take, for instance, the 1971 Peter Webb images — lost for 40 years before rediscovery in the past decade — depicting the young Mr. Watts and Mr. Richards from “Sticky Fingers” at the very height of their fame. Mr. Richards is fabulously attired in zippered black leather, graphically patterned velvet trousers in black-and-white, a contrast-patterned shirt, a custom leather bandoleer belt and buccaneer shag. Mr. Watts, by contrast, is wearing a three-piece suit with a six-button vest in what appears to be stolid burgomaster’s loden.Or take the double-breasted dove gray morning coat the mature Mr. Watts is seen wearing in another shot of himself and his wife, Shirley, at Ascot. (The couple bred Arabian horses.) Beautifully cut for his compact frame (he was 5-foot-8), it is worn with a pale pink waistcoat and tie, a shirt whose rounded collars are pinned beneath the knot, a style he first glimpsed and copied from the cover of Dexter Gordon’s imperious jazz classic “Our Man in Paris.”Already by 1967, the Stones (with Brian Jones in rear) were venturing into Portobello Road glad rags, vintage scarves and their girlfriends’ dresses. A lilac tie with a velvet jacket was about as Mod as Mr. Watts would ever get.Tony Gale/AlamyIt takes gumption, and a good relationship with one’s tailor, to pair a morning suit with a waistcoat in powder pink, as Mr. Watts, seen here with his wife, Shirley Watts, did at Ascot Racecourse in 2010.Indigo/Getty ImagesEach of those suits was bespoke, the latter stitched by H. Huntsman & Sons, a Savile Row institution that has been dressing British swells since 1849. Theirs was one of just two tailoring companies Mr. Watts worked with throughout his life.“Mr. Watts was one of the most stylish gentlemen I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” said Dario Carnera, the head cutter at Huntsman, in an email. “He imbued his own sartorial flair in every commission.” He ordered from the establishment for more than 50 years, the craftsman added. (In the Huntsman catalog there still exists a fabric — the Springfield stripe — of Mr. Watts’s design.)By his own rough estimate, Mr. Watts owned several hundred suits, at least as many pairs of shoes, an all-but-uncountable quantity of custom shirts and ties — so many clothes, in fact, that, inverting a hoary sexist cliché about fashion, it was his wife who complained that her husband spent too much time in front of the mirror.Mr. Watts seldom wore any of his sartorial finery onstage, however, preferring the practicality and anonymity of short-sleeved dress shirts or T-shirts for concerts or tours. It was in civilian life that he cultivated, and eventually perfected, a sartorial image as elegant, serene and impeccable as his drumming. More

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      in Television

      What Will Be the New Carrie Necklace?

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      Jewelry designers working with the “Sex and the City” reboot hope their creations have a chance.Hardly a day goes by now without some new promotional photo or online reference to the “Sex and the City” reboot so, as Carrie Bradshaw herself would say, “I couldn’t help but wonder: What will be the new Carrie necklace?”For those of you who don’t remember — or were too young for the original series that ran from 1998 to 2004 — Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, had a gold necklace displaying her name in flowing script.“It cost, like, nothing,” the character said in one episode when she thought she had lost the piece. But the nameplate necklace became one of the show’s enduring product links, like Manolo Blahnik stilettos — and even symbolized Carrie’s rediscovery of self when, in the series finale, she found it in her vintage Dior purse.It’s early days yet as the reboot — called “And Just Like That …” after another Carrie catchphrase — doesn’t premiere on HBO Max until later this year. But Molly Rogers and Danny Santiago, its costume designers, have selected jewelry ranging from a Bulgari Serpenti Tubogas watch (as much as $50,000 in some metals) to an elastic bracelet hand-sewn from an old tablecloth and pinned with vintage rhinestone brooches by the Berlin-based design duo Rianna + Nina (450 euros, or $530).The elastic bracelet with brooches designed by Rianna + NinaMost of the creations, even customized pieces, were lent for filming, but the series production did buy some.Neither Ms. Rogers nor Mr. Santiago are doing interviews yet, as an email from an HBO media relations manager said: “August is just too early since we don’t debut until later this year.” (Although the designers do have a “live from the set” Instagram page, @andjustlikethatcostumes, with more than 54,000 followers.)But some jewelry makers are talking about their creations selected for the series.One front-runner for the next Carrie necklace could be a $595 turquoise and malachite rope “because the necklace is really visible” around Ms. Parker’s neck in the official publicity still for the new series, said Allison Fry, the necklace’s maker, who founded the Fry Powers brand in 2018.(By mid-August the necklace had sold out at MatchesFashion, according to an email from the retailer.)Ms. Parker, center, as Carrie Bradshaw, wearing the Fry Powers turquoise and malachite rope necklace, with Cynthia Nixon, left, as Miranda, and Kristin Davis as Charlotte.via HBO MAXThe Fry Powers turquoise and malachite necklace that may be a front-runner in the Carrie necklace competition.Ms. Fry, 34, said she created the rope’s shimmering pattern by mixing and matching 72 beads, comparing the process to “when you are thinking about putting an outfit together and seeing what works.” She also made two other pieces for Carrie: a violet enamel ring accented with a baroque pearl and a violet enamel cuff.Another contender, seen in paparazzi photos: a gold necklace with a charm in the shape of New York State.Not that the rest of the central characters won’t have striking pieces of their own, like the two white diamond pavé hearts on a round link chain made by Jennifer Fisher and lent to the series for Charlotte York, played by Kristin Davis.Customized on the reverse with the initials of Charlotte’s two on-screen daughters (L for Lily Goldenblatt, played by Cathy Ang, and R for Rose Goldenblatt, played by Alexa Swinton), each of the hearts has 39 diamonds and took two weeks to make, Ms. Fisher said.“I don’t know if they’ll ever flip them over while they are shooting,” she said.The character Charlotte wears hearts by Jennifer Fisher adorned with the initials of her children.In the two “Sex and the City” feature films that debuted in 2008 and 2010, Ms. Fisher’s designs at one time or another were worn by all four lead characters, which included Samantha Jones, played by Kim Cattrall, and Miranda Hobbes, played by Cynthia Nixon. (Ms. Cattrall isn’t participating in the new series.)But, Ms. Fisher said, she believes jewelry can have more impact on television because “people tend to rewatch episodes of a television series.”Designers say that necklaces worn by new cast members also might be contenders for Carrie-level fame.There is the chunky red polyester chain necklace by the Danish brand Monies (pronounced MON-yus) worn by the Park Avenue mother and documentarian Lisa Todd Wexley, played by Nicole Ari Parker of “Empire.”The €630 necklace has garnered more than 1,200 likes on the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset and prompted Grazia magazine to declare that Lisa “is going to be the show’s new ambassador for power necklaces.”Ms. Parker with Chris Noth on the set of “And Just Like That …” in Chelsea in early August.James Devaney/GC Images, via Getty ImagesThe Rosa de la Cruz ebony bracelet.It may be a Carrie bracelet that replaces the Carrie necklace as, according to the London jewelry designer Rosa de la Cruz, 51, a piece becomes iconic depending on when it’s seen as well as who wears it.And her chunky ebony and 18-karat gold chain bracelet — listed at 2,595 British pounds, or $3,590 and purchased by the production company — was worn by Carrie in the series’s official publicity photograph as well as in the first scene between Carrie and her husband, Mr. Big, played by Chris Noth.“It’s the equivalent of being on the front cover of a magazine,” said Ms. de la Cruz, adding, “her fashion choices are the ones that get the most attention.”Cases in point: Carrie’s scene with Big posted by @andjustlikethathbo on Instagram on Aug. 3 received 14,440 views within 24 hours. And on TikTok there have been almost 37 million views of #andjustlikethat. Little wonder that user @letty0531 commented: “I feel like we’re gonna know the whole story by the time they finish filming.”Social media has been stalking news about the new series, such as the Instagram fan page @justlikethatcloset that Victoria Bazalinchuk, 23, a teacher in Odessa, Ukraine, created July 10. She now has more than 80,000 followers.“There were a few brands that contacted me, saying certain characters wore/will be wearing their pieces. For instance, Carrie’s new favorite brand Fry Powers, or Lisa’s Ana Srdic rings,” Ms. Bazalinchuk wrote in an email. “And of course sometimes followers find the items and send them to me.” (She said she became a “Sex and the City” fan after watching her mother’s DVD box set of the series, as “I was quite a kid when the original series aired.”)Her site is not the only one fueling fan anticipation. For example, on Instagram, @everyoutfitonsatc has 711,000 followers for its satirical take on the series. And when Ms. Parker posted on Instagram about the first script read-through, @system_bleu commented that she cannot wait for the new show. “Just finished the series — AGAIN … for the 13th time. This is huge,” she wrote. “The show spoke to so many of us and it’s a part of who we are today.”Some designers and fans say that Ms. Cattrall’s decision not to play Samantha again is a loss, but others are looking forward to the change. “Let’s not have all the same people,” said Ms. Srdic, 63, the Johannesburg jeweler whose $1,200 unpolished citrine ring was lent for Lisa’s wardrobe.Ms. de la Cruz agreed, adding, “Maybe this frees up the plot into a different dynamic.”While the series debut date hasn’t been announced, many fans already have plans.Ms. Fisher, for example, said she will be at home in New York City. “Maybe I’ll make myself a Cosmopolitan to celebrate while we watch,” she said, referring to Carrie’s favorite cocktail. “And have some girlfriends over. It’ll be fun.” More

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      in Movies

      Cartier Joins the Sponsors of the Venice Film Festival

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      As part of the agreement, the Paris high jewelry house will present an annual award, with the first going to the director Ridley Scott.Along with lavish screenings of new films starring Oscar winners like Penélope Cruz and Olivia Colman, the 2021 Venice Film Festival will feature a different type of premiere: the debut of Cartier as a new main sponsor.The festival “has elegance. It has exclusivity. It has glamour,” said Arnaud Carrez, Cartier’s chief marketing officer. “And that’s exactly what we want to build on.”As part of a three-year agreement, the festival, scheduled to begin on Sept. 1, will present the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award annually. This year’s recipient, chosen by the festival director Alberto Barbera, will be Ridley Scott, whose new film, “The Last Duel,” is scheduled to be shown at the festival on Sept. 10. (The award is to be presented immediately before the film’s screening.)The trophy — which will feature a panther, one of the house’s recurring motifs — is being made at the Cartier Creation Studio in Paris.Neither Cartier nor the festival would detail the financial aspects of the relationship, but film festivals can generate millions of dollars from sponsorships, which are typically offered on a variety of levels. There are two other new festival sponsors this year, both in less prominent tiers than Cartier: Repower, a Swiss energy company, and the Chinese electronics brand Xiaomi.For luxury brands like Cartier, choosing events and companies for partnerships can take some care. “The brand values need to be in line with the kind of art or the kind of activity they are sponsoring,” said Federica Levato, a Milan-based partner for Bain & Company.And, she said, consumers expect synergy in sponsorships. “If a brand is sponsoring an event with no link between the brand and the event, the customer will find it strange,” she said. (Last year, the festival had four main sponsors; three returning are Armani beauty, Campari and Mastercard.)Roberto Cicutto, president of La Biennale di Venezia, which oversees the festival and other cultural events in the city, wrote in an email that Cartier fit well as a sponsor because it had “the ability to best interpret a collaboration with a cultural institution.”Cartier has partnered with cinema-focused events before — like the Deauville American Film Festival, the French event it sponsored from 2005 through 2014 — as well as numerous art exhibitions through the Fondation Cartier, including current shows in Milan and Paris. “Art and culture have always been intimately intertwined with the history of Cartier,” Mr. Carrez said. More

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      in Television

      Logos Lose Their Power on the New ‘Gossip Girl’

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      Contrasting the fashions from the original series tells a much bigger story about trends overall.Even after the beloved teen drama series “Gossip Girl” ended in 2012, viewers couldn’t stop talking about the fashion. And now the show is back, with a Gen Z update. The reboot, which had its premiere on July 8 on HBO Max, takes place in the same world of wealthy Upper East Side elite as the original, but this time it’s barely recognizable as the same place.The show is significantly more diverse. The high school clique of the original show was mostly white and straight. Now there are several characters of color and plotlines that revolve around explorations of sexuality. The clothes the characters wear — maximalist sneakers, vintage purses, tote bags that promote their values — reflect a more intersectional worldview.The cast of the first season of “Gossip Girl,” when flats were the characters’ footwear of choice.Timothy White/The CWIn the rebooted series, Julien Calloway, played by Jordan Alexander, favors chunky Balenciaga sneakers.via HBOBalenciaga Sneakers Are the New Tory Burch Flats“Are those last season’s Tory Burch flats?” an incredulous Blair Waldorf asks a fellow student in Season 2 of the original show.Today, the question would be, “Are those Tory Burch flats?”When designing the wardrobes for the original show, the costume designer Eric Daman recalls walking by Upper East Side private schools and seeing groups of girls in Tory Burch flats. “It cemented the idea of, ‘OK, these young girls wear these designer brands and have cult favorites,’” he said. You’d see few logo-emblazoned ballet flats in that setting today.“The giant Balenciaga sneakers kind of replaced the Tory Burch flat,” Mr. Daman said. The change is indicative of what people, and young people in particular, consider the “it” shoe of today. Blending streetwear and luxury in a single commercial object, the sneaker is what epitomizes cool now.The new footwear is also part of the larger shift to sneakers, which rarely showed up in the old show. In the reboot, Zoya Lott, an outsider from Buffalo, wears the Adidas X Beyoncé Superstars in a key scene in which she meets the popular kids at school. The shoes are a gift from Julien, her half sister and an established Manhattanite. Showing up in the hot commodity shoes symbolizes a turning point for the character.“The shoes are kind of like a bridge into this other world for her,” Mr. Daman said.Blair Waldorf, played by Leighton Meester, carried a logo-heavy Louis Vuitton handbag in the original series.Ignat/Bauer-Griffin – GC ImagesWhitney Peak as Zoya Lott with one of her character’s signature expressive tote bags in the reboot.MediaPunch/ShutterstockThe New LogomaniaBig brand logos will be rare sights on the new show. Large logos don’t “feel authentic to what’s going on with this generation,” Mr. Daman said. “They’re less faithful to brands and less cliquey about them.”Logos used to signify status and a certain level of wealth, but today logos are often meant to convey political or social values. In the reboot, Zoya carries a tote from Revolution Books, a progressive indie bookstore in Harlem, as well as a “Recycling Black Dollars” tote bag from Melanin Apparel.Zoya’s bags are “all from really, really cool stores,” said Whitney Peak, who plays Zoya. “The bags very much speak to who she is.”Serena and Blair do their take on tights in the old series in 2007.Eric Leibowitz/The CWIn the new series athleisure pieces like bike shorts have replaced tights.via HBOAthleisure Is In, Tights Are Out“Tights are not pants!” Blair famously declared in the original series. Blair and her posse of mean girls commonly wore tights in a variety of colors and were offended at the sight of anyone wearing leggings without a skirt.With the exception of some plain black tights, the reboot is “a tightless world,” Mr. Daman said. And to what would certainly be Blair’s dismay, bike shorts are definitely considered pants now.Queen bee Julien frequently wears bike shorts, sometimes styling them with a collared shirt and tie. The athleisure movement, Mr. Daman said, “is a huge part of our culture and what’s going on in fashion. Coming out of the pandemic, people are holding onto their sweats but still want to dress up.”Jordan Alexander, who plays Julien, sees her character’s bike shorts as a highly relevant article of clothing today. “I don’t think it matters if you’re on the Upper East Side and in the one percent,” she said. “You’d still be rocking shorts.”Blair with an enormous, by today’s standards, handbag.Ray Tamarra/Getty ImagesJulien with a vintage Dior Saddle Bag.via HBODesigner Bags, But Now UsedIn the first iteration of the show, everything was big and new. Serena carried large hobo bags, and none of them were bought at resale shops. “If I brought in a secondhand bag to Serena van der Woodsen, she would’ve hit me with it,” Mr. Daman said.Today, staying true to Gen Z’s affinity for buying resale, several of the bags in the reboot are vintage. “We’ve done a lot of vintage Dior Saddle Bags, Fendi Baguettes,” Mr. Daman said. “It’s been great to have some eco-sustainability with these high-end bags.”Gen Z has been called Generation Green or the Sustainability Generation, and there’s a reason for it. Studies have shown that Gen Z makes shopping decisions based on how sustainable a business is, and at a higher rate than other generations. They want what they buy and what they wear to reflect their values.The size of the bags has also changed. The large hobo bag, Mr. Daman said, “is just not the jam” today. The micro Jacquemus Le Chiquito has yet to make an appearance, but it probably will soon, he said.Chuck Bass, played by Ed Westwick, in his element in a conventional men’s wear suit.Patrick Harbron/The CWThomas Doherty as Max Wolfe in a women’s Paco Rabanne blouse, breaking gender norms in a way the original show didn’t explore.via HBOExploring Gender Fluidity Through ClothesIn the original show, Chuck Bass was most often seen in a suit, conforming strictly to gender norms. “If I’d put a women’s blouse on Chuck Bass, it would’ve been a joke” Mr. Daman said.In the reboot, Max Wolfe, the flirty troublemaker of the group and the character most similar to Chuck, wears a white lace women’s Paco Rabanne shirt. Max, who is sexually fluid, is able to pull it off in a way that’s not kitschy or excessive. “To use clothing that doesn’t fit in with gender norms and not have it look like drag and be very sexy — he identifies as a male but wears this blouse — expands on the dialogue of what gender norms are and how we can have that conversation through clothing,” Mr. Daman said.Blair carried Chanel in the original series.James Devaney/FilmMagicSavannah Smith as Monet wears a classic Chanel belt.Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin – GC ImagesOld Chanel Is the New New ChanelIn the first iteration of the show, Chanel was huge for the characters’ style but also for getting other designers to open up their collections to the show. “We didn’t have access to all the designer houses and weren’t getting loans,” Mr. Daman said. “Once Chanel said yes to us, the floodgates opened.”Today Chanel pieces that hold historic value are of huge importance to the characters. “It’s these archival pieces that have a heritage to them that are on point, especially for the Zoomers who seem to love all things throwback to late ’90s and early ’00s,” Mr. Daman said. Classic Chanel handbags and accessories make heavy appearances in the show, as they are pieces that still resonate with younger generations.Headbands were practically mandatory in the original series and were an essential accessory for Blair.The CWJulien repurposing Zoya’s headband as a necktie when she was made fun of for wearing it.Gotham/GC ImagesGoodbye, HeadbandAny OG “Gossip Girl” fan knows that headbands were a big deal. “Blair Waldorf’s headband has a life of its own,” Mr. Daman said. “It was always like her security blanket, for someone who was very tightly wound, very Type A. It was like the last piece of a very thought-out outfit that holds it all together.”The Gen Z characters don’t need that anymore. “They have a different kind of self-confidence that comes from just being,” Mr. Daman said.In the reboot, the mean girl Monet de Haan snarks, “She has a headband on” when she spots Zoya, the out-of-towner. Julien, her half sister, promptly unties the silk scarf and slips it around Zoya’s neck.Headbands may be scarce, but neckties of all sorts are in. Audrey Hope, another member of the gang, wears hair ribbons or scarves around her neck, resembling a tie. “It really shows both sides of her — very feminine, classic energy as well as a side of her that’s a little bit more masc,” said Emily Alyn Lind, who plays Audrey.The desire to ditch the stuffy headband speaks to the times. “We’re in an internet age,” said Ms. Alexander, who plays Julien. “People don’t feel like they need to be one thing anymore. We’ve been exposed to so much.” More

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      in Music

      Is the Yeezy Gap Jacket Really Any Good?

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      The first product of the much-hyped collaboration made a big splash. But can Kanye West actually save Gap?The reveal of the first Yeezy Gap jacket on June 8, a year after the partnership between Kanye West and the beleaguered maker of American basics was announced, went pretty much as expected.First came the crazed excitement, the release of all that pent-up expectation: OMG! OMG! The future is finally here. And on Kanye’s birthday!Then, when it was clear you could preorder the jacket, the rush to get there first was on. CNBC excitedly reported it had sold out! So fast! The news went viral. It turned out to be fake.(Actually, the site crashed and is now back up. This is a preorder, not a limited edition drop. There is no finite number of sales because no actual jackets have yet been produced. You can keep buying for six more days.)And finally, the backlash: Wait, the jacket, which is made of recycled blue nylon, actually looks sort of like a trash bag. Also a deflated balloon.Now that 24 hours have elapsed and the dust has settled, perhaps it is time to step back and consider the jacket itself: Is it any good? And is it likely to do what it is supposed to do — what this whole partnership with Mr. West is supposed to do — which is wipe the slate clean, offer a new start and make Gap, which was struggling even before the pandemic, cool again?A qualified maybe.via GapThe jacket itself arrived like a puffer from another planet, suspended bodiless in the air of a Gap Instagram post or projected ghostlike against buildings in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, wafting slightly in the breeze. It is made from recycled nylon with a polyester fill (which one hopes is also recycled, though Gap did not specify; if it isn’t, that would be kind of … ahem). It is unisex and oversize with a squishy, tactile look and curving, tubular arms. There is a seam up the backbone and under each arm.It has no closures or additions to material of any kind, which may be interesting from a conceptual point of view but slightly problematic from a functional one, especially if, say, your hands are full so you can’t clutch it shut, and there’s a big wind.It also costs $200, which is pretty high for Gap, albeit lowish for Yeezy. It is named, in a Warhol way, the “round jacket,” because it looks, you know, round.And it is apparently the next stage of Mr. West’s new aesthetic, which has to do with reduction and the stripping away of excess. (See his most recent Paris Fashion Week return, where he described his clothes as made for “the service industry,” though it was hard not to think the service industry he was talking about was located on planet Jakku of “Star Wars.”)Mr. West himself had modeled his creation a few days earlier while out and about, and the brief appearance showed just how big and duvet-like the jacket, which swallowed his hands, actually is.To a certain extent, of course, it doesn’t matter if the jacket is flattering, or pragmatic. It is a first, and this is a historic collaboration from both a business and cultural perspective, so it will serve as a sort of artifact, or totem. The deal between Mr. West and Gap is long-term and lucrative; both brands are, in their own ways, part of the story of our times. Those who rushed to preorder may get their jackets and find out that they don’t like them at all, but they will do just fine on the secondary market. There are no doubt many who, schooled in sneaker entrepreneurship, bought them expressly for resale.That won’t affect Gap’s ability to boast about the sales figures of the jacket, though it may not set a reliable precedent when it comes to the next drops, and the drops after that. Gap is not a provider of limited resources, and limited resources are, of course, the most exciting ones. Though maybe the plan is to change all that.It seemed that way at first because Gap wiped its entire Instagram history to show simply the jacket, as though it was Day 1, a move that is rarely taken by an established brand since it seems to repudiate everything its customers bought before. See when Hedi Slimane arrived at Celine.And it also seemed that way because the jacket was apparently introduced and offered only in the United States.It turns out, however, that an international rollout is imminent, though Gap would not say exactly when. So Yeezy fans outside America don’t have to plot how to get their hands on a jacket after all.As for investors, Gap’s share price rose slightly on the day of the release but not in any unusual way. (At least it didn’t drop; maybe investors were relieved that Mr. West didn’t carry through on his threat to not make any product unless he got a Gap board seat.)But here’s the thing: Cool and accessibility are antithetical concepts; the more accessible and omnipresent something becomes, the less cool. If Mr. West and Gap can change that, they will have changed a lot more than style and their own reputations; they will have changed how we think. The real test will come with a full collection.Especially because Gap recently announced another new deal, for homewares — with Walmart. More