On Wednesday in Milan, Silvia Venturini Fendi unveiled a motley collection for Fendi, bursting with flowers and references to the 1990s. The exercise is clever: taking what, until yesterday, was considered “cheap” elastic cords, adjustable straps, flimsy windbreaker zippers and elevating it to the status of a new chic ornament on Calais lace “made in China.” Luxury has always loved recycling the banal since the man from Toledo, provided it’s wrapped in a carefully crafted narrative and staged with theatrical flair. It was as if we were laying the first stone of a memorial dedicated to the victims of stoning.
This is anti-fashion, a kind of “Haute Ready-to-Wear Couture” for shapeless school smocks worn three days in a row, destined, with Micron’s blessing, to become the uniform of Catholic institutions. As for trousers, we’re talking about sweatpants desperately trying to slip into the category of wardrobe “essentials.” Continue reading
Summer not the heatwave one, but the world’s summer that clings to old Britpop rags. Shabby tracksuits and drooping polos with fishtail parkas dragging through the mud like the Gallaghers, priests of nothing and celebrants of noise…
To convey the full “Gucci spirit,” Demna imagined a series of characters gathered under the name “La Famiglia,” each with their own personality and distinctive attitude. In collaboration with Francesca Bellettini, the newly appointed president and CEO, the designer chose to unveil a look book photographed by Catherine Opie on Monday, ahead of the short film The Tiger, directed by Spike Jonze and Halina Reijn, which will be presented Tuesday evening in Milan. 
What a vile farce, what a grandiose comedy this televised mass for that Maga YouTuber, this liturgy of a stuffed corpse in global broadcast! They shower him with incense, they weep like hysterical church ladies before the coffin of a cardboard prophet, a racist antisemite disguised as a universal martyr! We are force-fed with violins and rancid speeches, as if the sanctified carrion could wash away our collective sins!
Enough! Let us put an end to this travesty of style’s History, dressed up only to amuse the fashionable gallery. Gothic was not born in some backroom of Central Saint Martins between two Instagram selfies and a sponsored “rebellious” performance. No: it was conceived, forged, and imposed on fashion by Jean-Luc Amsler. Full stop.
Kering seems to have found the miracle cure for all its problems: changing (yet again) the CEO at Gucci. After nine months in the role, Stefano Cantino—barely the length of a maternity leave or two fashion seasons—has already been shown the door. Apparently, in luxury, instability is the new must-have accessory.
So here we are, presented with yet another temple of luxury, erected like a manifesto of ostentatious grandeur, with its seven levels piled up like the vanities of a world already overfed. A design gallery, two culinary spaces, an interior studio… it reads like a catalog of desires packaged in marble and glass. Paris, once again summoned as a postcard backdrop, finds itself ordered to host this transatlantic hybrid: half American dream bunker, half French palace of illusions.
The zipper, commonly called a zip, is today an everyday object, found on jeans, bags, coats, or even shoes. It is so widespread that we almost forget it was the result of a patient invention, the fruit of several attempts before becoming established.
Luxury industry entrepreneur and investor Francesco Trapani has passed away in Rome at the age of 68. The son of Lia Bulgari and nephew of Gianni, Paolo and Nicola Bulgari, he had, according to the statement, “inherited a profound passion for excellence, creativity and innovation.”
The US Open! This tournament, supposed to be the pinnacle of sport, the embodiment of merit, sweat, self-sacrifice, those hours of solitude on the court and training, that merciless discipline that makes an athlete a champion. And what are we being sold in endless glossy columns and sponsored Instagram posts? Certainly not the sporting achievement, but the pathetic parade of a “court of mirages”: Botoxed stars, supermarket bimbos, silicone clones, and interchangeable influencers whose only contribution to humanity is a plastic smile and a promo code for a pair of sneakers mass-produced by children.
Never, since the blissful hours when my childlike soul wandered along the shores of Saint-Malo with my kittens, had my body known such affliction. Brittany, mother of winds and waves, had given me back, along with the copper glow of summer days, the dryness and tugging of its salty nights. My skin, once supple as a morning leaf, bore the marks of a blazing sun, stinging sand, and a bitter breeze. My heart, faithful to the sea’s promise, nonetheless found itself captive within this tormented body.
Printemps Fires Its Boss With the Usual Formula: “Thank You for Your Commitment”
A peaceful farewell rises for this breath of elegance: on the morning of September 4, 2025, a light went out. Giorgio Armani, in his ninety-first year, has departed, surrounded by his loved ones, leaving upon the fabric of time the indelible imprint of a style that has become memory.
He was from Béarn, yet his name will forever resonate along the avenues of Paris and on the world’s red carpets. Jean Barthet, a genius milliner, shaped hats the way others write poems: letting audacity and grace dance together on a single thread.
For a long time a symbol of eternity and prosperity, luxury today is facing a deep crisis. While prestigious houses still retain their aura, their model is weakened by economic, social, and cultural upheavals. Several factors explain this decline.
During an interview in Milan to comment on his company’s solid results, Brunello Cucinelli reminded everyone that he was speaking on behalf of a house “firmly positioned at the exclusive level.”
It’s official: Givenchy has found its ambassador in China, and her name is Zhang Ruonan. The Chinese star had already hinted at her fashion love affair during Sarah Burton’s very first Givenchy show last March. For the occasion, she wore an asymmetrical papaya-colored dress’ that fruit we’re never quite sure about at breakfast but absolutely adore turning into a fashion statement. In her hand: a mini Antigona bag in box leather, barely big enough to hold a credit card, two Tic Tacs, and a reasonably sized ego.
In the grand narrative of American style, Perry Ellis wrote a chapter that belonged only to him. Far from the clichés of utilitarian sportswear, he infused it with a charm that was at once classic and free, a playful modernity, never without a touch of gentle irony.
I was leaving behind that millennial Brittany, blessed by its granite, standing like a shoulder of eternity, and when the sky blazed with a burning red, resembling the wrapping of Fahrenheit, which dares to claim it can hold infinity in such a trifling glass bottle, I admired this spectacle of dawn. The roar of the engine and the hoarse power of the 530cc echoed through the narrow streets of Pleslin like thunder rising from the depths of the ages. I was heading back to the capital, and this departure reminded me of mornings from another life, when, thirty years earlier, I tore myself from the warmth of a bed to write to the one I had just left, as if a single hour of absence already carved the abyss of eternity.