YStyle Picks

The ‘F’ word

MANILA, Philippines - So, Feminist Prabal Gurung is a thing now. On his website this week, the designer wrote, “There has always been a strange sense of antagonism between fashion and powerful women, a belief that women must sacrifice femininity to gain power, authority and respect — and that fashion especially is too frivolous a concern for serious women. I have never understood this notion, and I wouldn’t be doing what I do today if I believed it.” As a tribute to the strong women he has grown up with and dressed, like Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton, Gurung has decided to start a series on his blog, “The Journal,” located on his official website, “Monday Muse,” wherein he pays tribute to a different woman every week. This week, it’s Princeton graduate and cancer survivor Suleika Jaouad who penned a column entitled “Life, Interrupted” for the “Well” section of the The New York Times. Finally, proof that fashion people aren’t concerned solely with fashion things in their fashion lives.

Shoes day

After an abrupt departure in late 2011 from Jimmy Choo, the company she co-founded and was creative director of, there is finally news of Tamara Mellon’s next move. While she has quite possibly added to the 1,000 pairs of shoes she owned since the last time Harper’s Bazaar visited her in 2010, on the work front, the British businesswoman has announced that she will be launching her “accessible” eponymous label of women’s RTW, handbags and, of course, shoes, this coming November. According to Vogue.co.uk, Mellon hopes that her new brand will “break the traditional retail landscape.” Expect the inaugural collection, which features plenty of red as Mellon’s signature color, to appear in standalone Tamara Mellon stores and on Tamaramellon.com later this year.

New gig

H&M is reportedly distancing themselves from model-on-top Cara Delevinge a few months after she was photographed dropping a tiny baggie of white powder (that suspiciously looked like cocaine) outside her apartment, in front of the papparazzi. The Swiss retailer clarified that the Brit model was never the face for the brand, but rather just one of the models it used for their past campaigns. The brand claims: “There was a misunderstanding that she was a face of H&M. We just used her for the show.” H&M reportedly has a zero-tolerance anti-drug policy and didn’t hesitate to drop Kate Moss in 2005 after the controversial model was photographed snorting coke. Nevertheless Delevinge has reportedly moved on, with speculation swirling that she has landed her first film starring role in rumored director Preston Thompson’s film, Kids In Love, the plot of which sounds a lot like The Bling Ring, minus all the theft.

Seeing double (D’S)

Penelope Cruz and her sister Monica designed an entire line of lingerie for Agent Provocateur and to launch the line, Penelope decided to write and direct a racy short film starring her husband, Javier Bardem, and Sports Illustrated’s favorite bombshell (before Kate Upton jiggled into the picture), Irina Shayk. The premise is every adolescent boy’s wet dream: Right before a man walks into a party, he puts on a pair of magic X-ray sunglasses that, instead of allowing of him to see everybody’s skeletons, offers the opportunity to see all the women in the party in their underwear! Doing things like dancing seductively in a kiddie pool, feeding each other cake and doing weird acrobatic poses from hanging points that just happen to be there. Because it’s not weird to do those things fully-clothed and we women totally do those things at parties. Amazingly, the dudes get to keep their suits on and, not surprisingly, no chick showed up to this party in a ratty pair of Fruit of the Loom panties. There is a pregnant chick in a nightie somewhere, though. If you haven’t seen it, we’re pretty sure your husband/boyfriend already has because, let’s face it: Men never outgrow their prepubescent fantasies.