Lifestyle
Mushrooms and Speed at Alexander McQueen
Alexander McQueen returned to New York, for one evening solely, with a number of giant piles of pungent filth and wooden chips.
The particles, dumped right into a Brooklyn warehouse after which sculpted into tall hills, turned the backdrop for the label’s fall 2022 present, which was titled “Mycelium,” after the threaded fungal networks from which mushrooms develop.
Clearly there have been mushrooms within the assortment, simply as one was printed in chartreuse on a poster despatched to friends with their invites. Mushrooms appeared in vibrant colours on tattered oversize knits, rising freaky tendrils through single strands of flowing mohair. They had been additionally on uneven sleeveless attire, piling on high of each other in a psychedelic mélange of crystals, beads and sequins.
However these colours (acid inexperienced, candied yellow, Cheetos orange) had been extra pure than their hues urged, impressed by pictures of fungi, stated Sarah Burton, the artistic director.
Backstage after the present, Ms. Burton spoke of the duality of the mushroom: “It’s therapeutic,” she stated, however it may be poisonous as properly. “There’s a hazard to it.”
When requested if she thought of utilizing mushroom leather-based — a number of main style firms are backing Mylo, a leather-based various constructed from mycelium — Ms. Burton stated no. (There have been a number of all-leather seems, together with a banana-colored strapless costume and a deconstructed trench coat in blood pink.)
“We really are trialing it, the mycelium leather-based,” Ms. Burton stated. “However I didn’t wish to do it till we even have sufficient product to form of discuss as a narrative.”
She stated that “80 to 85 %” of the 41 seems within the assortment used recycled materials, together with polyester. The present’s filth set would even be recycled, donated to an unnamed farm and artwork challenge.
Some concepts had been recycled, too, from iconic McQueen collections. Two sharply tailor-made fits had been printed with the blurry define of a human physique, just like the shadows completely etched onto stone surfaces after an atomic blast — mushroom imagery of a special form.
The print on the fits was created from “a shadow of an individual shifting that we photographed within the studio,” Ms. Burton stated, nevertheless it additionally “nodded” to an archival McQueen look: a white costume graffitied with black and yellow paint. At that spring 1999 present, the label’s late founder Alexander McQueen orchestrated two robots to spray-paint the mannequin, Shalom Harlow, in entrance of a dwell viewers.
Although McQueen has some historical past in New York — coming right here twice within the Nineties, for exhibits now memorialized in style historical past — there was no clear motive to return now, one week after the top of Paris Trend Week (the place the label usually exhibits), apart from to take care of its American shopper base after a while away. In late 2020, the corporate opened a brand new retailer in SoHo.
“It’s nice to be right here to speak to all these girls that we costume,” Ms. Burton stated, which included, in attendance at Tuesday’s present, Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright, the “Black Panther” stars, and Helena Christensen, the supermodel.
And the momentum of New York had a sure affect on the gathering, Ms. Burton stated. It was there in her ample slashing: the bandage costume slashed down one leg with cutouts, the blazer slashed vertically down the again, the cigarette trousers slashed vertically from mid-thigh to only under the knee. True to a New Yorker’s wardrobe, all of those items had been black.
“It’s an thrilling metropolis,” Ms. Burton stated. “It’s a artistic metropolis. It’s not a speedy metropolis, however it’s a quick metropolis, and I wished it to have a tempo to it and an vitality to it.”
Lifestyle
Opinion: Happy Halloween? Living with unease, uncertainty and the uncanny in a scary season
One of the best parts of new parenthood is figuring out what your child is going to be for Halloween. Considering the costume possibilities for my 15-month-old, I have been surprised and often delighted by what one can find on the internet. For a reasonable price, you can dress your baby up as Cher Horowitz, Doc Brown, Lord Farquaad, Mary Poppins or a Rydell High cheerleader while you yourself take on the persona of Austin Powers, Forrest Gump, Harry Potter or Wonder Woman. The holiday seems nostalgic and innocent, even unifying in its appeal to the one thing we all share: that we were children once.
That is, of course, until I walk outside, where I am reminded of my lifelong discomfort with the more lurid aspects of Halloween. All around me are homes festooned with terrifying man-made skeletons, goblins, clowns and witches. “How can anyone stand this?” I keep asking myself.
As it turns out, Halloween has always been rooted in dueling ideas of the otherworldly. Set aside in the 9th century as a day to honor the Catholic saints, it succeeded an even older Gaelic celebration of transition between seasons and states of being. Our modern holiday might be thought of as a portmanteau of All Hallows’ Eve — the Christian feast that precedes All Saints’ (or Hallows’) Day — and Samhain, an ancient Celtic holiday marking the final harvest of the year and the beginning of winter.
As Katherine May writes in her book “Wintering,” Samhain (pronounced sah-win) represents a seasonal and spiritual threshold at which the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest, inviting loved ones we have lost to visit us. Between fall’s radiant foliage and the year’s first snow, it’s “a time between two worlds, between two phases of the year,” and “a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn’t know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold.”
Today we have lost much of this reverence for Halloween, yet the holiday continues to thrive. Oblivious to its original purpose, our modern version is an expression of the American idea that you can be whoever you want to be as well as a vehicle for our tensions and anxieties, turning death into a joke with temporary disguises and decorative one-upmanship.
Maybe the detached skulls and bloody hands on our lawns are part of an endeavor to harness or reclaim our fears. Or maybe the fantastical monsters of our imaginations have become easier to face than the human monsters running for our public offices — a process that culminates every few years, as it happens, just days after Halloween.
In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Elizabeth Bruenig wrote for the Washington Post that Halloween “gets its depth and intrigue from the layering of things that seem frightening but are really benign — toothy jack-o’-lanterns, ghoulish costumes, tales of ghosts and witches and monsters — atop things that seem benign but are really frightening, such as the passage of the harvest season into the long, cold dark.”
Yet what if we should really be frightened not so much of the “long, cold dark” as our unwillingness to confront it? Americans sometimes seem unable to face the real darkness of the world, much less embrace what can be gained from it: compassion for others’ suffering; acceptance of the seasonality of life; separation from the capitalist hustle; and a greater sense of gratitude, belonging and purpose.
The passage of time, grief for those we have lost, longing for a better world that seems perpetually out of reach — all of these things can be frightening. But they don’t have to be.
As election day looms just beyond this ancient celebration, it’s time to put the “hallow” back in Halloween. Amid the bare branches, flickering candles and migrating birds lies an invitation to reflect not only on the children we once were but also on the adults we aspire to become — and to dwell, for a moment, in the seasonal and spiritual in-between.
Cornelia Powers is a writer who is working on a book about the golfer Bessie Anthony, her great-great-grandmother.
Lifestyle
Keri Russell returns as 'The Diplomat,' which is just as savvy in Season 2
At a time when it seems political rhetoric couldn’t get more bitter or outrageous, it’s easy to see the world’s leaders and the people who support them in the worst possible light.
But Netflix’s The Diplomat offers a different vision of politics: one where sharp staffers are often the backseat drivers in government, and many of those involved are truly interested in improving lives – even when they do awful things along the way.
That’s the universe Netflix’s series thrives in, where The Americans alum Keri Russell plays a hard-nosed, practical mid-level diplomat suddenly elevated to serve as ambassador to Britain, amid plans to groom her to become America’s next vice president.
Starting season two with a bang
As the show’s second season kicks off, Russell’s Ambassador Kate Wyler is dealing with the aftermath of a cliffhanger that ended the first season. Her husband — former ambassador Hal Wyler — along with her deputy, Stuart Hayford and another aide were caught in the blast of a car bomb while trying to meet with an official from the British government.
The official may have had information about who really initiated a deadly attack against a British aircraft carrier from the first season. But instead of learning more, Kate’s husband and two members of her staff were caught in another attack.
While British and American officials scamper to figure out exactly what happened, we see The Diplomat ride a delicious, compelling line between serving up hefty slices of political drama and revealing the mournful humanity of co-workers trying to recover from a massively traumatic event.
Every performance here is golden. Rory Kinnear is particularly excellent as an egotistical blowhard of a British Prime minister, Nicol Trowbridge. Ali Ahn, currently earning raves for her performance as a witch on Disney+’s Agatha All Along, shines here as CIA station chief Eidra Park – trying to offer savvy, effective support to Kate while not-so-secretly fretting about Kate’s deputy Stuart, with whom she had a relationship.
Rufus Sewell is magnetic as Kate’s husband Hal; she suspects he sees her ascension to vice president as his best route back to power, but he insists otherwise, testing their relationship. David Gyasi plays U.K. foreign secretary Austin Dennison as a precise-yet-passionate power player, focused on doing the right thing for Britain, even as he grows closer to Kate and her marriage frays.
But it’s not until West Wing alum Allison Janney arrives as current Vice President Grace Penn that we see the show’s drama really come alive. As a brilliant vice president who may be forced to step down because of a financial scandal involving her husband, Penn excels at maneuvering others into doing what she wants while leaving them convinced it was all their idea.
Some may have been concerned that Janney is playing a souped-up version of her West Wing character, White House staffer C.J. Cregg. But ultimately, they don’t have much in common beyond a habit of speaking directly and a predilection for pantsuits.
A show centered on smart women leading
What both of Janney’s characters do have in common, however, is that they are accomplished, effective women – making a difference in environments where their talents and achievements are often underestimated or overlooked.
Indeed, several storylines in The Diplomat revolve around smart women deftly guiding powerful men into making better decisions than they could manage on their own. These men aren’t complete idiots, but also are not as smart as they believe – especially Trowbridge, a vociferous bully who leans heavily on several sharp-thinking women, including his wife.
In a particularly pointed exchange, as Hal notes all the humiliating reasons why Penn should accept her fate and resign without damaging the president’s agenda, Kate responds with a telling line. “What do you think my husband would do if it was him?” she says to Penn. “Would he quit?”
The answer – that Hal naturally assumes the benefits he brings would outweigh any political cost – neatly outlines the specter of sexism which hangs over The Diplomat. In a world free from that particular “ism,” you get the sense these women would actually occupy the seats of power, instead of acting as backseat drivers for the men who do.
Complicated plots that pay off
Compelling as all of this is, the plot gets even more complicated in the second season, as Kate and her team begin to sort what really happened in both the warship attack and the car bomb. New viewers trying to jump into the series now could be thoroughly confused — best to make sure you know the events of the first season before joining in for the second.
But once acclimated, you can sit back and enjoy a story set in a political universe where expertise is valued, competition plays out like a protracted, 3D chess game and several staffers caught in the middle truly believe in the possibility of using their offices to make life better for everyone.
Who knew a visceral, fast-paced series about a global political conspiracy could also – thanks to the terrible state of our real-world political clashes – feel like something of a fantasy?
Lifestyle
Hollywood Sign Lights 'D' To Celebrates Dodgers' World Series Win
One of the most iconic landmarks in Los Angeles is joining in on the Dodgers’ World Series party — with the Hollywood sign lighting up its “D” after the home team beat the New York Yankees!!
Shortly after Walker Buehler struck out Alex Verdugo to clinch the team’s eighth title in franchise history … the sign that attracts around 50 million visitors a year lit up the night sky with the last letter glowing in Dodger blue!!!
The team was also celebrated with a movie-inspired Nike ad … which rolled the credits on L.A.’s impressive season, which included earning the best record in baseball.
A classic Hollywood story for the @Dodgers. Roll Credits. pic.twitter.com/RJTVpyXg9c
— Nike (@Nike) October 31, 2024
@Nike
It marked one of many celebrations that took place across the city … with some city streets turning into chaos as the night rolled on.
It was a party from coast to coast, as the Dodgers went all out in their celebration at Yankee Stadium — which even saw Clayton Kershaw flex his dadbod!!!
While the party is over for now … it’ll be revving back up shortly — as the title parade goes down Friday morning in DTLA.
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago
Alien Country (2024) – Movie Review
-
Technology7 days ago
OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December
-
Health6 days ago
New cervical cancer treatment approach could reduce risk of death by 40%, trial results show
-
Culture7 days ago
Top 45 MLB free agents for 2024-25 with contract predictions, team fits: Will Soto get $600M+?
-
Sports5 days ago
Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam gives Dodgers Game 1 World Series win vs. Yankees
-
News5 days ago
Sikh separatist, targeted once for assassination, says India still trying to kill him
-
Culture5 days ago
Freddie Freeman wallops his way into World Series history with walk-off slam that’ll float forever
-
Technology4 days ago
When a Facebook friend request turns into a hacker’s trap